Boost Intrusive List hook

Question

What is the difference in a base hook and a member hook in Boost::Intrusive library and when is one better to use then the other?

I've read the boost documentation, but its not that explanatory.

Answer 1

As far as I can tell it is a matter of style and object-oriented design. Base hooks intrude upon the inheritance hierarchy, necessitating an extra public parent class and possibly forcing multiple inheritance upon the design. Using member hooks allows the programmer to treat an object as having a has-a relation with a container, rather than an is-a relation with container membership.

Answer 2

imho if your object is intended to be included into single container only, base hook seems more convinient. Otherwise (for multiple containers), multiple member hooks provide less ambigious solution (since multiple inheritance is avoided)

Answer 3

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_47_0/doc/html/intrusive/recursive.html "Member hooks are not suitable for recursive structures"