I am writing a reference counted smart pointer template in c++ as an excercise. However, I'm also beginning to learn about threads, and I don't think these smart pointers are thread safe. The pointer template expects the template parameter to have the Ref(), DecRef(), and RefCount() methods, so the object itself stores its own reference count. I want to ensure that two threads with reference pointers to the same object don't clobber each other.

One idea I've seen is for the smart pointer to return a lightweight proxy object (as a temporary variable) that calls Lock() in its constructor and Unlock() in its destructor on the object being referenced will lock automatically when it is accessed through the smart pointer, but I think this not only takes away flexibility (what if you don't need to lock, ie access read only) and doesn't completely solve the problem, but I don't know enough about threads to know why.

Any suggestions, or links for further reading would be appreciated.

Thanks,
JeroMiya

This is precisely the sort of situation that compare-and-swap is perfect. See my response to your other thread