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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-15T07:05:55+00:00

That’s basically the question. If I have a pointer int *a = &someIntVar and

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That’s basically the question. If I have a pointer int *a = &someIntVar and I do not delete it over the course of the program, does it stay in memory after the program has terminated? Is this a case of data fragmentation?

EDIT:

My mistake for using a bad example. So int *a = new int[100]; never gets deleted, and even if it gets deleted, an answer says that the pointee is deleted, not the pointer. Yet pointers also have a length. So the question is, on a Windows or Linux OS, does it automatically clean up after pointers? (Assume C++)

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Since you have not newed this pointer, you are not leaking memory.

    Were you to do int* a = new int; and not delete a, then you would leak a.

    As a rule of thumb, the number of news should equal the number of deletes.

    When someIntVar goes out of scope, the stack is unwound and its memory will be freed and a will be left dangling, of course.

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