When to use new and when not to in C

Question

Possible Duplicate    When should I use the new keyword in C          When should I use the  new  operator in C    I m coming from C  Java background and instantiating objects is confusing for me   If I ve created a simple class called  Point   when I create a point should I   Point p1   Point 0 0     or   Point  p1   new Point 0  0     Can someone clarify for me when to use the new operator and when not to   Duplicate of   When should I use the new keyword in C     Related   About constructors destructors and new delete operators in C   for custom objects  Proper stack and heap usage in C

User · Answer

Take a look at this question and this question for some good answers on C++ object instantiation.

This basic idea is that objects instantiated on the heap (using new) need to be cleaned up manually, those instantiated on the stack (without new) are automatically cleaned up when they go out of scope.

void SomeFunc()
{
    Point p1 = Point(0,0);
} // p1 is automatically freed

void SomeFunc2()
{
    Point *p1 = new Point(0,0);
    delete p1; // p1 is leaked unless it gets deleted
}

User · Answer

New is always used to allocate dynamic memory  which then has to be freed   By doing the first option  that memory will be automagically freed when scope is lost   Point p1   Point 0 0     This is if you want to be safe and don t want to keep the memory outside this function   Point  p2   new Point 0  0     This must be freed manually  with    delete p2

User · Answer

You should use new when you wish an object to remain in existence until you delete it  If you do not use new then the object will be destroyed when it goes out of scope  Some examples of this are   void foo       Point p   Point 0 0        p is now destroyed   for           Point p   Point 0 0        p is destroyed after each loop   Some people will say that the use of new decides whether your object is on the heap or the stack  but that is only true of variables declared within functions    In the example below the location of  p  will be where its containing object  Foo  is allocated  I prefer to call this  in-place  allocation   class Foo      Point p        p will be automatically destroyed when foo is    Allocating  and freeing  objects with the use of new is far more expensive than if they are allocated in-place so its use should be restricted to where necessary   A second example of when to allocate via new is for arrays  You cannot  change the size of an in-place or stack array at run-time so where you need an array of undetermined size it must be allocated via new   E g   void foo int size       Point  pointArray   new Point size             delete    pointArray        pre-emptive nitpicking - yes  there are extensions that allow variable sized stack allocations

User · Answer

You should use new when you want an object to be created on the heap instead of the stack  This allows an object to be accessed from outside the current function or procedure  through the aid of pointers   It might be of use to you to look up pointers and memory management in C   since these  are things you are unlikely to have come across in other languages

[c++] When to use "new" and when not to, in C++?

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