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C++ futures distinguish single-consumer and shared results

devblogs.microsoft.com by Raymond Chen Editor score 6/10

std::future is move-only and consumes its result through get(), while shared_future is copyable and lets multiple consumers retrieve a reference to shared storage. The distinction matters when designing asynchronous APIs and choosing how results are handed between components.

What: std::future is a move-only C++ type for a single consumer; std::shared_future is copyable and supports multiple consumers.
How: std::future::get consumes the value once, while shared_future::get returns a const reference that each copy can retrieve repeatedly.
Why it matters: Choosing between them affects ownership and whether consumers can modify or move from a result, especially when the value is move-only.

A future and shared_future provide different ways to retrieve a value from the source. Sketched from the article's own text.

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