Question

My current code to the effect of:

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

doesn’t work because the pointers are getting set to invalid hex numbers by the compiler such as:

• 0xbaadf00d
• 0xdeadbeef

etc….

So what’s the best way to check for an invalid pointer before trying to delete the object?

Answer 1

Always initialize your pointers to NULL (that is, 0). From http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/c-faq/c-1.html:

A null pointer is conceptually different from an uninitialized pointer. A null pointer is known not to point to any object; an uninitialized pointer might point anywhere.