How does the destructor know when to activate itself? Can it be relied upon?
- by Robert Mason
Say for example i have the following code (pure example):
class a {
int * p;
public:
a() {
p = new int;
~a() {
delete p;
}
};
a * returnnew() {
a retval;
return(&retval);
}
int main() {
a * foo = returnnew();
return 0;
}
In returnnew(), would retval be destructed after the return of the function (when retval goes out of scope)? Or would it disable automatic destruction after i returned the address and i would be able to say delete foo; at the end of main()? Or, in a similar vein (pseudocode):
void foo(void* arg) {
bar = (a*)arg;
//do stuff
exit_thread();
}
int main() {
while(true) {
a asdf;
create_thread(foo, (void*)&asdf);
}
return 0;
}
where would the destructor go? where would i have to say delete? or is this undefined behavior? Would the only possible solution be to use the STL referenced-counted pointers? how would this be implemented?
Thank you- i've used C++ for a while but never quite been in this type of situation, and don't want to create memory leaks.
