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Understanding reference counting in C++ smart pointers

This is a medium-difficulty question that tests your ability to trace the lifecycle of smart pointers and understand how reference counts change as objects are created, copied, and destroyed. It's the kind of problem interviewers use to verify that you can reason precisely about memory management in C++, rather than relying on intuition.

To solve problems like this, you need to follow each operation that affects the reference count: construction, assignment, scope exit, and explicit deletion or reset. The question rewards careful, step-by-step analysis of when shared ownership is established or released. Strong candidates annotate their reasoning at each stage rather than guessing at the final state.

• Shared pointer semantics and ownership transfer
• Reference count increments and decrements
• Scope and automatic cleanup
• Explicit pointer operations (reset, assignment, move)