Deleting an array from the heap

I have never been in a situation where I wanted to use one until now, so I was a little surprised when I went to delete it and got a "Debug Assertion Error". I can access the array directly through the pointer as though the pointer itself were the array, but I cannot delete the pointer without that error popping up.

I don't want the memory to be sitting on the stack when I am done using it, so I would rather not declare the array normally if it can be avoided. I thought about using a linked list (the array items are class objects), however when I finish debugging the class I am going to implement a linked list into its container class anyway. This array is needed only for a short portion of the program.

Any easy way around this?

Well, the way around this is to fix what you're doing wrong. I guess if you've got an array on the heap, you used new[]? If so, use delete[] to delete it. Or if you leak your memory you should fix that. Without more information, I don't know what's gone wrong.

The declaration goes like this:

Code:

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GameSprite* pSpritePointer=new GameSprite[4];

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Originally, I had attempted to delete it like this:

Code:

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if(pSpritePointer)
    {
    delete pSpritePointer;
    }

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That generated the debug assertion error. However, I did what you said by using

Code:

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delete[4] pSpritePointer;

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and it worked fine. Like I said I never was in a situation where i wanted to use it before so I didnt know you could use delete[]. Thanks for the tip!

Just delete [] pSpritePointer; not delete[4] pSpritePointer;

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DarkMasterBosel

Any easy way around this?

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#include <vector> and use a std::vector. Read Stroustrup's answers to the FAQs: How do I deal with memory leaks? and What's wrong with arrays? (though the latter has fixed size arrays as its focus).