Do you know Boost.Pointer Container? Andrzej gives some useful information in his recent blog entry:

A gotcha with ptr_vector

He gives answers to these questions:

What would you use boost::ptr_vector for? Why would you need to have a vector of pointers, which you want to delete yourself? Is it because:

1. You want the objects to remain at the same address even if you re-allocate the array under the vector?
2. You want to inter-operate with a library that already deals with owing pointers?
3. You want it to be faster than if you were storing values in std::vector?
4. You want the “polymorphic behavior” of your objects?