Ref_counted_pointers_and_STL

I'm putting this in a wiki because I keep asking Nate and I keep forgetting his answer.

Question: Which STL structures might have problems with calling ref counted pointer destructors? Or is it just certain operations like clear()?

Answer: It's with operations like clear. There may be references on them, or when you remove an element from a datastructure like a deque or a queue. If they're implemented in terms of vector, they don't get freed until they're reallocated. Another problem is if you're using a special memory allocator that doesn't destroy your object.

These problems affect classes such as the hash_map, which probably uses a vector as its data structure. Keep this in mind when calling erase() or clear() on such structures, as you might have to manually set the Ref counted pointer to NULL prior to erasing/clearing, or else they will be sitting around taking up resources for a long time.