Encapsulate each resource in a class which clears them in its destructor (with a surrounding try/catch):

struct ProperlyManagedA { // some means of using the resource - a rudimentary way is this: A &getA() { return a; } const A &getA() const { return a; } // cleanup ~ProperlyManagedA() { try { a.clear(); } catch (...) {} } private: A a; } 

A shared_ptr with a custom deleter is one way to achieve this without having to create a whole class for each type of resource.

You might be able to better than discarding the exception (log the problem, for example), depending what's thrown.

Even better, modify resources A, B and C so that they clear themselves in their own destructors. That might not be possible, though.

Either way, you can then put as many such resources in a single class as you like, without adding any code to the destructor of the class. This is "scalability". The whole point of RAII, is that each user of a resource shouldn't have to write cleanup code in order to use the resource correctly.

Encapsulate each resource in a class which clears them in its destructor (with a surrounding try/catch):

struct ProperlyManagedA { // some means of using the resource - a rudimentary way is this: A &getA() { return a; } const A &getA() const { return a; } // cleanup ~ProperlyManagedA() { try { a.clear(); // whatever it is ClearResourceA actually does } catch (...) {} } private: A a; } 

A shared_ptr with a custom deleter is one way to achieve this without having to create a whole class for each type of resource.

You might improve on discarding the exception (log the problem, for example), depending what's thrown.

Even better, modify resources A, B and C so that they clear themselves in their own destructors. That might not be possible, though.

Either way, you can then put as many such resources in a single class as you like, without adding any code to the destructor of the class. This is "scalability". The whole point of RAII, is that each user of a resource shouldn't have to write cleanup code in order to use the resource correctly.