c++ bad_weak_ptr error

Question

I want to create some Timer class, which prints "text" every N seconds, where N will be initialized in constructor.

#include <boost/asio.hpp>
#include <boost/bind.hpp>
#include <boost/enable_shared_from_this.hpp>

#include <iostream>

class Timer : public boost::enable_shared_from_this<Timer>
{
public:
    Timer ( const double interval ) : interval_sec( interval )
    {
        io_service_ = new boost::asio::io_service;
        timer_      = new boost::asio::deadline_timer ( * io_service_ );
        start( );
        io_service_ -> run( );
    }

    void start ( )
    {
        timer_ -> expires_from_now( boost::posix_time::seconds( 0 ) );
        timer_ -> async_wait(boost::bind( &Timer::handler
                                        , shared_from_this( )
                                        , boost::asio::placeholders::error
                                        )
                            );
    }

private:
    void handler( const boost::system::error_code& error )
    {
        if ( error )
        {
            std::cerr << error.message( ) << std::endl;
            return;
        }

        printf( "text\n" );
        timer_ -> expires_from_now( boost::posix_time::seconds( interval_sec ) );
        timer_ -> async_wait( boost::bind( &Timer::handler
                                         , shared_from_this( )
                                         , boost::asio::placeholders::error
                                         )
                            );
    }

private:
    boost::asio::io_service * io_service_;
    boost::asio::deadline_timer * timer_;
    double interval_sec;
};

int main()
{
    boost::shared_ptr<Timer> timer( new Timer ( 10 ) );
    return 0;
}

But I have bad_weak_ptr error.

terminate called after throwing an instance of 'boost::exception_detail::clone_impl<boost::exception_detail::error_info_injector<boost::bad_weak_ptr> >'
  what():  tr1::bad_weak_ptr
Aborted

What am I doing wrong and how can I fix it?

Answer 1

Before calling shared_from_this() your class needs to be stored in a shared_ptr. This means that you cannot call shared_from_this() inside the constructor, because the line the object won't be placed into the shared_ptr until after the constructor is finished.

This is the reason that classes which use enable_shared_from_this typically have a start function which does the final steps of initialization that require the use of shared_from_this(). That start function needs to be called after the object is completely constructed, and so cannot be called from inside the constructor as you are doing.