make_unique and perfect forwarding

Solution 1:

Herb Sutter, chair of the C++ standardization committee, writes on his blog:

That C++11 doesn’t include make_unique is partly an oversight, and it will almost certainly be added in the future.

He also gives an implementation that is identical with the one given by the OP.

Edit: std::make_unique now is part of C++14.

Solution 2:

Nice, but Stephan T. Lavavej (better known as STL) has a better solution for make_unique, which works correctly for the array version.

#include <memory>
#include <type_traits>
#include <utility>

template <typename T, typename... Args>
std::unique_ptr<T> make_unique_helper(std::false_type, Args&&... args) {
  return std::unique_ptr<T>(new T(std::forward<Args>(args)...));
}

template <typename T, typename... Args>
std::unique_ptr<T> make_unique_helper(std::true_type, Args&&... args) {
   static_assert(std::extent<T>::value == 0,
       "make_unique<T[N]>() is forbidden, please use make_unique<T[]>().");

   typedef typename std::remove_extent<T>::type U;
   return std::unique_ptr<T>(new U[sizeof...(Args)]{std::forward<Args>(args)...});
}

template <typename T, typename... Args>
std::unique_ptr<T> make_unique(Args&&... args) {
   return make_unique_helper<T>(std::is_array<T>(), std::forward<Args>(args)...);
}

This can be seen on his Core C++ 6 video.

An updated version of STL's version of make_unique is now available as N3656. This version got adopted into draft C++14.