Thread: Novice heap questions.

Would there be any benefit in this pointless example to having the data of ObjectTwo be declared separately on the heap? Is not the member from ObjectOne not on the free strore? What is/are the difference(s) aside from how you access said data?

Code:

class ObjectOne
{
   public:
      int data;
};

class ObjectTwo
{
   ObjectTwo() {data = new int;}
   ~ObjectTwo() { delete data; }

      int * data;
};

int main()
{
   ObjectOne * classOne = new ObjectOne();
   ObjectTwo * classTwo = new ObjectTwo();

   delete classOne;
   delete classTwo;

return 0;
}

If it is just an int, probably not.

But once you have such pointers in your class, obey the rule of three.
Rule of three (C++ programming) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Btw, you have the nomenclature backwards, interchange your ClassX and ObjectX names here.
These minor details are rather important to understand object oriented programming properly.

Do whichever is simpler.
(I always put builtin types and the standard containers directly)

Only use pointers when the object is of an incomplete type. (say..forward declared classes)
This helps reduce clutter in the header files and improve compilation times.
A (common?) pattern for that is to put all private data behind a pointer to a large object.
( Opaque pointer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )