c++ - Using std::make_unique with a custom deleter

Question

In using std::unique_ptr with a custom deleter I desire to use std::make_unique rather than a raw new. I am using VC++2013. It appears to me that there is no way to use std::unique_ptr if you are using a custom deleter. Did I miss something or is this really the case?

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Additional Information:

I am using a std::unique_ptr<HANDLE, custom_deleter> to hold a Windows HANDLE for an opened COM port.

I could write a custom RAII class for this, and it wouldn't be terribly difficult, but I was seeing how hard/difficult/bad it would be to use std::unique_ptr.

Answer 1

The whole point of make_unique is to encapsulate the notion of "use new to create a T from given constructor arguments and use delete to destroy it".

If you wanted a custom deleter, you would also have to specify how to create the object, and then there would be nothing more gained from having the emplacing maker function.

I wrote some examples of custom maker functions for certain unique resource handles in this post.