char array member in c++ class

Question

I have in my c++ class member:

char array[24];

What to do with this member in the destructor or may be nothing ? Thanks for advice.

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 21 '13 at 06:03

5

Nothing. You don't allocate space for array manually, so you shouldn't free it manually.

edited Mar 21 '13 at 06:03

answered Mar 21 '13 at 05:40

ForEveR

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2

Kind of, but not exactly. The correct answer is nothing, but the array is not necessarily on the stack. It's wherever the object was allocated. So if `c` is allocated by `new`, then the memory for `array` is in the heap, but will automatically be cleaned up as part of `delete c;` – Anthony Mar 21 '13 at 05:46

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 21 '13 at 05:56

Allocation/deallocation applies for objects constructed on free-store (using malloc/new etc.) the array in the class will have its lifetime same as the object of the class. So you should be concerned about handling the allocation/deallocation of objects and not their members (when members are not pointers).

When a member variable is a pointer and it points to dynamically allocated memory/object then you need to deallocate it (preferably in the destructor).

For example:

class A { };

class B {

    A* a;

    B() { 
        a = new A;
    }

    ~B() { 
        delete a; 
    }
};

char array member in c++ class

2 Answers2