Question

In C++ we use delete operator to delete objects most of the time.

The delete doesn’t make pointer value NULL. Is there any way this can be achieved automatically?

e.g.

int *p = new int;
delete p;  // this should deallocate object pointed by p
           // and also initialized value of p = NULL

Answer 1

It is simple to write one like this:

template<class T>
void safe_delete(T*& p)
{
    delete p;
    p = NULL;
}
int main()
{
    int* p = new int;
    safe_delete(p);

    double* p1 = new double;
    safe_delete(p1);

}

Be careful not to use this with arrays though 🙂