What's the proper way to handle an RAII member variable?

Question

I'm new to C++ and don't yet fully understand the RAII pattern. I'm writing a class which uses an sqlite database via SQLiteC++. Here is some sample code that uses the database that works:

void test() {
    SQLite::Database db(TestDbPath(), SQLITE_OPEN_READWRITE|SQLITE_OPEN_CREATE);

    db.exec("DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test");
    db.exec("CREATE TABLE test (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, foobar TEXT)");
}

What I want to do is use an SQLite::Database from a class. Something like this would work:

class DBUser
{
private:
    SQLite::Database *db;

public:
    explicit DBUser(std::string &path) {
        db = new SQLite::Database(path, SQLITE_OPEN_READWRITE|SQLITE_OPEN_CREATE);
    }
    ~DBUser() {
        delete db;
    }

    void test() {
        db->exec("DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test");
        db->exec("CREATE TABLE test (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, foobar TEXT)");
    }
}

Is that the best way, though? Is there a more idiomatic/elegant way to accomplish this without a pointer?

Answer 1

Just have an object as a member:

class DBUser
{
private:
    SQLite::Database db;

public:
    explicit DBUser(std::string &path) :
        db (path, SQLITE_OPEN_READWRITE|SQLITE_OPEN_CREATE) 
    {

    }
    void test() {
        db.exec("DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test");
        db.exec("CREATE TABLE test (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, foobar TEXT)");
    }
}