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Thinking in C++
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delete void* is probably a bug

It’s worth making a point that if you call delete for a void*, it’s almost certainly going to be a bug in your program unless the destination of that pointer is very simple; in particular, it should not have a destructor. Here’s an example to show you what happens:

//: C13:BadVoidPointerDeletion.cpp
// Deleting void pointers can cause memory leaks
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

class Object {
  void* data; // Some storage
  const int size;
  const char id;
public:
  Object(int sz, char c) : size(sz), id(c) {
    data = new char[size];
    cout << "Constructing object " << id 
         << ", size = " << size << endl;
  }
  ~Object() { 
    cout << "Destructing object " << id << endl;
    delete []data; // OK, just releases storage,
    // no destructor calls are necessary
  }
};

int main() {
  Object* a = new Object(40, 'a');
  delete a;
  void* b = new Object(40, 'b');
  delete b;
} ///:~

The class Object contains a void* that is initialized to “raw” data (it doesn’t point to objects that have destructors). In the Object destructor, delete is called for this void* with no ill effects, since the only thing we need to happen is for the storage to be released.

However, in main( ) you can see that it’s very necessary that delete know what type of object it’s working with. Here’s the output:

Constructing object a, size = 40
Destructing object a
Constructing object b, size = 40

Because delete a knows that a points to an Object, the destructor is called and thus the storage allocated for data is released. However, if you manipulate an object through a void* as in the case of delete b, the only thing that happens is that the storage for the Object is released – but the destructor is not called so there is no release of the memory that data points to. When this program compiles, you probably won’t see any warning messages; the compiler assumes you know what you’re doing. So you get a very quiet memory leak.

If you have a memory leak in your program, search through all the delete statements and check the type of pointer being deleted. If it’s a void* then you’ve probably found one source of your memory leak (C++ provides ample other opportunities for memory leaks, however).

Thinking in C++
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   Reproduced courtesy of Bruce Eckel, MindView, Inc. Design by Interspire