unique_ptr and polymorphism

Question

I have some code that currently uses raw pointers, and I want to change to smart pointers. This helps cleanup the code in various ways. Anyway, I have factory methods that retur

Answer 1

If Push does not take owenrship, it should probably take reference instead of pointer. And most probably a const one. So you'll have

Push(*number);

Now that's obviously only valid if Push isn't going to keep the pointer anywhere past it's return. If it does I suspect you should try to rethink the ownership first.