How to make a c++11 std::unordered_set of std::weak_ptr

c++, c++11, std, unordered-set, weak-ptr

Solution

Please read Richard Hodges answer below as mine is incorrect, despite being the accepted solution.

Since `unordered_sets` are hash-based you have to provide a hash function object for the std::weak_ptr data-type.

If you take a look at the unordered_set template-parameters

template<class Key,
    class Hash = std::hash<Key>,
    class Pred = std::equal_to<Key>,
    class Alloc = std::allocator<Key> >
    class unordered_set;

you'll notice that std::unordered_set provides you with a default std::hash<> template parameter. But since std::hash does only provide specializations for a specific set of data types, you might have to provide your own.

The error-message you quoted tells you, that no std::hash<> specialization for std::weak_ptr<> exists, so you have to provide your own hashing function for that:

template<typename T>
struct MyWeakPtrHash : public std::unary_function<std::weak_ptr<T>, size_t> {
   size_t operator()(const std::weak_ptr<T>& wp)
   {
      // Example hash. Beware: As zneak remarked in the comments* to this post,
      // it is very possible that this may lead to undefined behaviour
      // since the hash of a key is assumed to be constant, but will change
      // when the weak_ptr expires
      auto sp = wp.lock();
      return std::hash<decltype(sp)>()(sp);
   }
};

Edit: You also need to provide an equality function, since no std::equal_to for weak_ptr is provided. Taking a possible way to do this from "Equality-compare std::weak_ptr" on Stackoverflow:

template<typename T>
struct MyWeakPtrEqual : public std::unary_function<std::weak_ptr<T>, bool> {

   bool operator()(const std::weak_ptr<T>& left, const std::weak_ptr<T>& right)
   {
      return !left.owner_before(right) && !right.owner_before(left);
   }
};

All combined this gives us the following:

std::unordered_set<std::weak_ptr<T>,
                   MyWeakPtrHash<T>,
                   MyWeakPtrEqual<T>> wpSet;

Problem

Original source

Related problems

• How can you efficiently check whether two std::weak_ptr pointers are pointing to the same object?
• Why was std::hash not defined for std::weak_ptr in C++0x?