Preventing Dangling Pointers

[Asymptotic]

What are your recommendations as far as preventing the "Dangling pointer problem?" Do you ALWAYS assign NULL to the pointer as soon as you free it? Are there any other methods you recommend or have tried? Thanks.

Btw: Dangling pointers in this case refers to pointers which point to memory that has already been freed and thus a deference would be bad

[jimblumberg]

What are your recommendations as far as preventing the "Dangling pointer problem?"

Avoid using dynamic memory except when absolutely necessary.

Do you ALWAYS assign NULL to the pointer as soon as you free it?

No. Dereferencing a NULL pointer is still a problem, so it's best that you just remember not to play with a pointer that has been freed.

Jim

[GReaper]

Of course, if there's any chance to use the pointer in the future, you should make it NULL. If not though, it's pointless in my opinion.