TObjectPtr - Unreal's Templated Pointer

With the release of Unreal 5, Epic began replacing their underlying classes to use templated pointers instead of raw pointers.

AActor* FooBar is now TObjectPtr<AActor> FooBar

While the use of templated pointers is optional and has no effect in shipping builds, Unreal highly recommends its use for improved performance and compile times in editor builds.

The TObjectPtr adds dynamic resolution and access tracking in editor builds while performing identically to raw pointers in shipping builds.

TObjectPtr Notes

As opposed to a raw pointer which requires nullptr initialization, the templated TObjectPtr ensures the pointer is initialized.

Since TObjectPtr is converted into a raw pointer for shipping builds, there is no performance penalty for using it.

While TObjectPtr can be used for local variables and function parameters, there is no apparent benefit for doing so compared to a single *.

Source Code Notes

TODOs left behind in source:

@TODO: OBJPTR: Investigate TObjectPtr support for UFunction parameters.

@TODO: OBJPTR: we want to permit lazy background loading in the future
else if (*LoadBehaviorMeta == "LazyBackground")
{
    LoadBehavior = EImportLoadBehavior::LazyBackground;
}

@TODO: OBJPTR: Need to find other options for solving this issue of placeholder classes during blueprint compile without forcing all imports to resolve always

@TODO: OBJPTR: We should have a test that ensures that lazy loading of an object with an external package is handled correctly. ... and many more