If I delete a class, are its member variables automatically deleted?

Question

I have been researching, and nothing relevant has come up, so I came here.

I am trying to avoid memory leaks, so I am wondering:

Say I have class MyClass with member ints a and b, and an int array c, which are filled in a member function:

class MyClass
{
    public:
        int a, b;
        int c[2];
        void setVariables() 
        {
            a, b = 0;
            for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++) 
            {
                c[i] = 3;
            }
        }
};
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    MyClass* mc = new MyClass();
    mc->setVariables();
    delete mc;
} 

Now, after I call delete mc, will a, b, and all the contents of c be deleted as well? Or will I have to do that explicitly in the destructor of MyClass?

Solution 1

When delete mc is executed, the compiler calls the destructor of the object (MyClass::~MyClass()) and then deallocates the memory associated with it.

The default destructor (when you don't declare your own) calls the destructors of all member variables, in order from last to first by declaration (that is, in this case, c, then b, then a). Since those members in this example are POD types (they do not have a destructor), no work is done.

Solution 2

The rule is very simple: every object created with new must be destroyed exactly once with delete; every array created with new[] must be destroyed exactly once with delete[]; everything else must not be deleted. So your code is correct; you are deleting mc after creating it with new, and not deleting the members which were not created with new.

Applying the rule can be quite tricky when the program flow gets complicated (especially when exceptions are involved); for that reason, it is much better not to delete objects yourself, but to immediately use the result of new to initialise a smart pointer to manage the object for you.

Solution 3

Class members are a part of the class' memory structure.

So when you free that memory, the members are freed with it.

NOTE:
If you have pointers they are destroyed too, BUT the memory they point at isn't destroyed.

More about class memory consumption:

C++ Classes

Solution 4

Variables inside of a class have class scope and are destroyed when the class is. The only thing you need to worry about is pointers -- those will need to be addressed appropriately in your destructor.

Solution 5

For your specific example, the answer is yes. That's because you allocated the member variables on the stack. If you had used new to allocate memory for the member variables the answer would be no and would require you to explicitly delete the member variables in the class' destructor.

class MyClass(): heapVariabl(NULL)
{  
   MyClass()
   {}

   ~MyClass()
   {
     delete heapVariable; 
   }   

   int a, b;     
   int[2] c;     
   int *heapVariable;
   void setVariables()      
   {         
     a, b = 0;       
     heapVariable = new int; // <- requires deletion in destructor to free memory
     *heapVariable = 0;
     for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++)          
     {             
       c[i] = 3;          
     }     
   } 


} 

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Comments

[user229044]

+1 for not mentioning classes. This has nothing to do with classes: Regardless of where your variables are declared, you simply need to match new with delete and new[] with delete[]. If you didn't use either new or new[], you don't need to worry about it.