How do I model a non-owning view on some resource (not itself managed via shared_ptr), if not via raw pointer?

Question

std::unique_ptr is for exclusive ownership.

std::shared_ptr is for shared ownership.

So it looks like a raw pointer is left just the job of being a non-owning pointer, at least in good code.

But if I see a raw pointer somewhere, I actually don't know if it is truly just observing the pointee, or it is used somewhere to delete it or to create a new object.

Is there anything in the C++ language, or an accepted idiom, to model a non-owning view on some resource?

Answer 1

There is std::experimental::observer_ptr which is a pointer without ownership.