Question

There is such code:

#include <iostream>

int main(){
  unsigned int* wsk2 = new unsigned int(5);
  std::cout << "wsk2: " << wsk2 << " " << *wsk2 << std::endl;
  delete wsk2;
  wsk2 = new unsigned int;
  std::cout << "wsk2: " << wsk2 << " " << *wsk2 << std::endl;
  return 0;
}

Result:

wsk2: 0x928e008 5
wsk2: 0x928e008 0

I have read that new doesn’t initialize memory with zeroes. But here it seems that it does. How does it work?

Answer 1

There are two versions:

wsk = new unsigned int;      // default initialized (ie nothing happens)
wsk = new unsigned int();    // zero    initialized (ie set to 0)

Also works for arrays:

wsa = new unsigned int[5];   // default initialized (ie nothing happens)
wsa = new unsigned int[5](); // zero    initialized (ie all elements set to 0)

In answer to comment below.

Ehm… are you sure that new unsigned int[5]() zeroes the integers?

Apparently yes:

[C++11: 5.3.4/15]: A new-expression that creates an object of type T initializes that object as follows: If the new-initializer is omitted, the object is default-initialized (8.5); if no initialization is performed, the object has indeterminate value. Otherwise, the new-initializer is interpreted according to the initialization rules of 8.5 for direct-initialization.

#include <new>
#include <iostream>


int main()
{
    unsigned int   wsa[5] = {1,2,3,4,5};

    // Use placement new (to use a know piece of memory).
    // In the way described above.
    // 
    unsigned int*    wsp = new (wsa) unsigned int[5]();

    std::cout << wsa[0] << "\n";   // If these are zero then it worked as described.
    std::cout << wsa[1] << "\n";   // If they contain the numbers 1 - 5 then it failed.
    std::cout << wsa[2] << "\n";
    std::cout << wsa[3] << "\n";
    std::cout << wsa[4] << "\n";
}

Results:

> g++ --version
Configured with: --prefix=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple LLVM version 5.1 (clang-503.0.40) (based on LLVM 3.4svn)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin13.2.0
Thread model: posix
> g++ t.cpp
> ./a.out
0
0
0
0
0
>