>The user has to know what's an auto_ptr in order to use it.
>I don't think the argument is very powerfull.

I can agree in general but I feel that the case of 'delete ptr'
must be viewed as an exception worth preventing because delete
is such a frequent operation (especially compared to directly
invoking a destructor as in ptr.~auto_ptr<Foo>().

Your  'char a[5]; delete [] a; ' example is precisely what lead me
to an alternative solution to the auto_ptr delete problem.  After
investigating why the compiler should consider the code legal it
became evident that adding (a private) operator void*() to auto_ptr
would be sufficient.  I have not proposed this alternative solution
because it is too late to make it into the standard.  In addition
I havn't had the time to investigate all the ramifications of the
the idea.

--
John Hickin      Nortel Technology, Montreal, Quebec
(514) 765-7924   hickin@nortel.ca
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