How to check if weak_ptr is empty (non-assigned)?

Question

Is there a way to distinguish between an assigned (possibly expired) weak_ptr and a non-assigned one.

weak_ptr w1;
weak_ptr w2 = ...;
         


        

Answer 1

You can use two calls to owner_before to check equality with a default constructed (empty) weak pointer:

template 
bool is_uninitialized(std::weak_ptr const& weak) {
    using wt = std::weak_ptr;
    return !weak.owner_before(wt{}) && !wt{}.owner_before(weak);
}

This will only return true if w{} "==" weak, where "==" compares owner, and according to en.cppreference.com:

The order is such that two smart pointers compare equivalent only if they are both empty or if they both own the same object, even if the values of the pointers obtained by get() are different (e.g. because they point at different subobjects within the same object).

Since the default constructor constructs an empty weak pointer, this can only return true if weak is also empty. This will not return true if weak has expired.

Looking at the generated assembly (with optimization), this seems pretty optimized:

bool is_uninitialized(std::weak_ptr const&):
        cmp     QWORD PTR [rdi+8], 0
        sete    al
        ret

... compared to checking weak.expired():

bool check_expired(std::weak_ptr const&):
        mov     rdx, QWORD PTR [rdi+8]
        mov     eax, 1
        test    rdx, rdx
        je      .L41
        mov     eax, DWORD PTR [rdx+8]
        test    eax, eax
        sete    al
.L41:
        rep ret

... or returning !weak.lock() (~80 lines of assembly).