Deleting a Pointer to an array.

[jamesmk]

Hi all!

I've probably got a dumb question, but I can't seem to find any direct refrences to my subject when I search for it.

I'm trying to figure out how to delete a pointer to an array.

Let me show my code:

	int *p;
	int a[10];
	
	p=a;
	for (int i = 0; i<10; i++)
		p[i]= i;
	
	for (int i = 0; i<10; i++)
		cout << "a[" << i << "]= " << a[i] << endl;
		
	delete []p;	// Produces Segmentation Fault
	delete p;	// Produces Segmentation Fault 

I'm sure that it must be simple, but I'm just not getting it.

Any help will be appreciated!

Thanks!

- James

[filipe]

You can't call delete on a stack allocated object. delete is to be used on objects allocated with new. Notice that delete doesn't delete the pointer, but the object it points to. Example:

int* a = new int[10];
delete[] a;
a = NULL; // a still exists, but it's a dangling pointer now, so we set it to NULL (or 0) 

[jamesmk]

Oh.

Ok, thanks!

I knew it was a simple answer.

So there is no way to free up the memory taken up by the pointer itself?

[Athar]

The pointer is an automatic object and will be destroyed at the end of the current block, like all other stack objects.

[jamesmk]

Ok.

Thanks Athar!