Microsoft Specific
A _com_ptr_t object encapsulates a COM interface pointer and is called a "smart" pointer. This template class manages resource allocation and deallocation through function calls to the IUnknown member functions: QueryInterface, AddRef, and Release.
A smart pointer is usually referenced by the typedef definition provided by the _COM_SMARTPTR_TYPEDEF macro. This macro takes an interface name and the IID and declares a specialization of _com_ptr_t with the name of the interface plus a suffix of Ptr. For example:
_COM_SMARTPTR_TYPEDEF(IMyInterface, __uuidof(IMyInterface));
declares the _com_ptr_t specialization IMyInterfacePtr.
A set of function templates, not members of this template class, support comparisons with a smart pointer on the right side of the comparison operator.
Construction
| Constructs a _com_ptr_t object. | 
Low-Level Operations
| Calls the AddRef member function of IUnknown on the encapsulated interface pointer. | |
| Encapsulates a raw interface pointer of this smart pointer's type. | |
| Creates a new instance of an object given a CLSID or ProgID. | |
| Extracts and returns the encapsulated interface pointer. | |
| Attaches to an existing instance of an object given a CLSID or ProgID. | |
| Returns the encapsulated interface pointer. | |
| Calls the QueryInterface member function of IUnknown on the encapsulated interface pointer. | |
| Calls the Release member function of IUnknown on the encapsulated interface pointer. | 
Operators
| Assigns a new value to an existing _com_ptr_t object. | |
| Compare the smart pointer object to another smart pointer, raw interface pointer, or NULL. | |
| Extract the encapsulated COM interface pointer. | 
Requirements
Header: comip.h
Lib: comsuppw.lib or comsuppwd.lib (see /Zc:wchar_t (wchar_t Is Native Type) for more information)