Question

I often see legacy code checking for NULL before deleting a pointer, similar to,

if (NULL != pSomeObject)  {     delete pSomeObject;     pSomeObject = NULL; } 

Is there any reason to checking for a NULL pointer before deleting it? What is the reason for setting the pointer to NULL afterwards?

Answer 1

It’s perfectly ‘safe’ to delete a null pointer; it effectively amounts to a no-op.

The reason you might want to check for null before you delete is that trying to delete a null pointer could indicate a bug in your program.

Edit

NOTE: if you overload the delete operator, it may no longer be ‘safe’ to delete NULL