Home/ Questions/Q 8955227
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-06-15T14:30:10+00:00

I am trying to learn the best habits and practices in C++, particularly surrounding

  • 0

I am trying to learn the best habits and practices in C++, particularly surrounding memory management. I have been spoiled on this front by using ARC in my iOS apps, and the built-in GC in Java, as well as a few other languages where GC is enabled.

I understand that you use delete or delete[] to deconstruct pointers. My question is, how do you delete integers, or other variables of a base data type?

My first thought was that since delete seems to only work with pointers, can I do this:

int intToDelete = 6;
delete &intToDelete;

So basically, can you create a pointer to an integer in memory, and delete the integer using that pointer?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    delete and delete[] should only be used with pointers which you allocated explicitly with new or new[], respectively. In particular, for every time you use new, you should have a corresponding delete. Similarly, each new[] needs a corresponding delete[]. You should never use either of these with variables for which you do not explicitly allocate memory. The compiler takes care of memory allocation (and deallocation) for all non-pointer variables.

    • 0