TypeB is complicated. TypeA is in this case used as a value type in C++ even though it is a reference type. Unless you implement the control to make sure TypeB stays alive as long as there are references to the member you'd do best not to expose this to the scripts at all. Instead I suggest that you use property accessors to allow the script to manipulate the TypeA member without directly accessing it.

For TypeC you're correct to use @. If you want to prevent that the pointer is reassigned, then ideally AngelScript should allow the member as &, but that is currently not supported. For now you'll need to use property accessors to make sure the script cannot reassign the handle. In this case you just need to expose a get accessor that returns the handle to the member.

asOBJ_GC is necessary if the object can form circular references that will not be resolved by the application.

The classes TypeA, TypeB, and TypeC in your example can't form any circular references,

If TypeA could hold a pointer to TypeC too, then a circular reference could be formed between TypeA and TypeC. If the application doesn't keep track of these and resolve them itself then the asOBJ_GC flag and related behaviours are necessary to avoid memory leaks.

"Unless you implement the control to make sure TypeB stays alive as long as there are references to the member"

I wonder how one might do that.

maybe have all children add/subtract there refcount above 1 from there parent object? I had a few other ideas but this seems the simplest:

class RefCount
{
RefCount * mParent;
int mCount;
RefCount(){mCount = 1; mParent = NULL;}
Add()
{
mCount++; 
if (mParent) // We know count is above 1 or the object should of been deleted already, Add is not called for the initial 1 mCount value.
  {
  mParent->Add();
  }
}
Release()
{
if (mParent && (mCount > 1))
  {
  mParent->Release()
  }
mCount--;
if (mCount == 0) delete this;
}
};

Of course, One has to manualy set the mParent of each child 'RefType as a Value type' member in the constructor of the refTypes(your TypeB) object.

While I guess one could have RefCount derive from your existing ref counting class and make Add/Release virtual, I suspect the virtual call overhead would cost more then checking mParent and mCount again every release/addition. And one additional pointer per ref object is not a huge deal in most cases.

You would then have..

class TypeA : public RefCount // asOBJ_REF
{
};

class TypeB : public RefCount // asOBJ_REF
{
TypeA m_A; // ... RegisterObjectProperty("TypeB", "TypeA A", asOFFSET(TypeB, m_A), ...
TypeB()
  {
  m_A.mParent = this;
  }
};

Thoughts? Any problems with this solution?

On a subnote, the below Release() might preform a little better although might not be as clear.

Release()
{
mCount--;
if (mCount > 0)
  {
  if (mParent)
    mParent->Release()
  }
else 
  delete this;
}