Explicitly deleting a shared_ptr

Question

Simple question here: are you allowed to explicitly delete a boost::shared_ptr yourself? Should you ever?

Clarifying, I don\'t mean delete the pointer held

Answer 1

If you want to simulate the count decrement, you can do it manually on the heap like so:

int main(void) {
    std::shared_ptr* sp = new std::shared_ptr(std::make_shared(std::string("test")));
    std::shared_ptr* sp2 = new std::shared_ptr(*sp);
    delete sp;

    std::cout << *(*sp2) << std::endl;    // test
    return 0;
}

Or on the stack using std::shared_ptr::reset() like so:

int main(void) {
    std::shared_ptr p = std::make_shared(std::string("test"));
    std::shared_ptr p2 = p;
    p.reset();

    std::cout << *p2 << std::endl;    // test
    return 0;
} 

But it's not that useful.