Use `=delete` when you want to disable default behavior (without wanting an alternative)

Reason

In a few cases, a default operation is not desirable.

Example

class Immortal {
public:
    ~Immortal() = delete;   // do not allow destruction
    // ...
};

void use()
{
    Immortal ugh;   // error: ugh cannot be destroyed
    Immortal* p = new Immortal{};
    delete p;       // error: cannot destroy *p
}

Example

A unique_ptr can be moved, but not copied. To achieve that its copy operations are deleted. To avoid copying it is necessary to =delete its copy operations from lvalues:

template<class T, class D = default_delete<T>> class unique_ptr {
public:
    // ...
    constexpr unique_ptr() noexcept;
    explicit unique_ptr(pointer p) noexcept;
    // ...
    unique_ptr(unique_ptr&& u) noexcept;   // move constructor
    // ...
    unique_ptr(const unique_ptr&) = delete; // disable copy from lvalue
    // ...
};

unique_ptr<int> make();   // make "something" and return it by moving

void f()
{
    unique_ptr<int> pi {};
    auto pi2 {pi};      // error: no move constructor from lvalue
    auto pi3 {make()};  // OK, move: the result of make() is an rvalue
}

Note that deleted functions should be public.

Enforcement

The elimination of a default operation is (should be) based on the desired semantics of the class. Consider such classes suspect, but maintain a "positive list" of classes where a human has asserted that the semantics is correct.