Memory leak when using std::shared_ptr with circular references in C++11
Quick question that's been bugging me - I'm relatively new to this, so bear with me... I'm stuck on something that should probably be simple... I'm currently working on a project that uses `std::shared_ptr` for memory management, but I'm encountering a memory leak due to circular references between two classes. The setup involves a `Parent` class that contains a `std::shared_ptr<Child>`, and the `Child` class holds a `std::shared_ptr<Parent>`. When I try to delete the `Parent` object, the memory is not released, leading to a memory leak. Here is a simplified version of my code: ```cpp #include <iostream> #include <memory> class Child; class Parent { public: std::shared_ptr<Child> child; ~Parent() { std::cout << "Parent destroyed" << std::endl; } }; class Child { public: std::shared_ptr<Parent> parent; ~Child() { std::cout << "Child destroyed" << std::endl; } }; int main() { std::shared_ptr<Parent> p = std::make_shared<Parent>(); std::shared_ptr<Child> c = std::make_shared<Child>(); p->child = c; c->parent = p; return 0; } ``` When I run this code, I notice that the destructor for `Parent` and `Child` are never invoked, indicating that the memory allocated for these objects is not being freed. I understand that this is due to the circular reference created by `std::shared_ptr`. I've looked into using `std::weak_ptr` to break the cycle but I'm not sure how to implement that correctly. Can someone provide guidance on how to refactor this code to avoid the memory leak while still maintaining the relationships between `Parent` and `Child`? Any examples or best practices would be greatly appreciated! This is part of a larger CLI tool I'm building. Any ideas what could be causing this? I'm working on a service that needs to handle this. Any ideas what could be causing this? This is part of a larger CLI tool I'm building. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Is there a better approach? This is for a web app running on CentOS. Could someone point me to the right documentation?