The free store

Lecture 3 - Slide 15 : 27

The free store

The C++ operators new and delete are used instead of the <cstdlib> functions malloc / calloc and free

new
- Application: new T or new T[i], where T is a type
- Returns a (raw) pointer to the new object
- The object allocated by new lives until it is deallocated with delete
- Use new T{} to establish a pointer to a default-initialized object
delete
- Application: delete pT where pT is a pointer returned by new
- A variant delete[] pT must be used if pT is a pointer to an array allocated by new

Illustration of free store.

"A C++ implementation does not guarantee the prescence of a 'garbage collector'" [Stoustrup 4ed page 278]