checking memory/pointer if it's valid before deleting

[stanlvw]

I'm trying to find out a proper practice of checking if the pointer/array is valid before calling the delete operator. I know I can check if the pointer is a NULL pointer before deciding whether I should call the delete operator, but that doesn't take care of the case of a dangling pointer. In other words, how do I check whether I have proper access to the memory that the pointer is pointing to before calling the delete operator?

Thanks in advance for suggestions.

[bithub]

You can't check if the pointer is dangling. The best practice is to do:

delete my_pointer;
my_pointer = NULL;

It is OK to delete a NULL pointer, so you don't need to check if it's NULL before calling delete.

[stanlvw]

What happens if I would allocate my_pointer again right after delete? Would it get assigned to an address that has enough memory in the heap?

[cyberfish]

Yes.