Should we pass a shared_ptr by reference or by value?

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This question has been discussed and answered by Scott, Andrei and Herb during Ask Us Anything session at C++ and Beyond 2011. Watch from 4:34 on shared_ptr performance and correctness.

Shortly, there is no reason to pass by value, unless the goal is to share ownership of an object (eg. between different data structures, or between different threads).

Unless you can move-optimise it as explained by Scott Meyers in the talk video linked above, but that is related to actual version of C++ you can use.

A major update to this discussion has happened during GoingNative 2012 conference’s Interactive Panel: Ask Us Anything! which is worth watching, especially from 22:50.

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