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Dynamic Memory

Dynamic memory allocation in C++ allows programs to determine memory needs at runtime using operators new and delete. The new operator allocates memory of a specified type and returns a pointer to that memory. It can allocate a single element or an array of elements. The size of the allocation can be any variable value rather than a constant. Memory allocation may fail if the system is out of memory, in which case new will either throw a bad_alloc exception by default or return a null pointer if using nothrow allocation.

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63 views

Dynamic Memory

Dynamic memory allocation in C++ allows programs to determine memory needs at runtime using operators new and delete. The new operator allocates memory of a specified type and returns a pointer to that memory. It can allocate a single element or an array of elements. The size of the allocation can be any variable value rather than a constant. Memory allocation may fail if the system is out of memory, in which case new will either throw a bad_alloc exception by default or return a null pointer if using nothrow allocation.

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icul1
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Dynamic memory

In the programs seen in previous chapters, all memory needs were determined before program
execution by defining the variables needed. But there may be cases where the memory needs of a
program can only be determined during runtime. For example, when the memory needed
depends on user input. On these cases, programs need to dynamically allocate memory, for
which the C++ language integrates the operators new anddelete.


Operators new and new[]
Dynamic memory is allocated using operator new. new is followed by a data type specifier and, if
a sequence of more than one element is required, the number of these within brackets []. It
returns a pointer to the beginning of the new block of memory allocated. Its syntax is:

pointer = new type
pointer = new type [number_of_elements]

The first expression is used to allocate memory to contain one single element of type type. The
second one is used to allocate a block (an array) of elements of type type,
where number_of_elements is an integer value representing the amount of these. For example:
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int * foo;
foo = new int [5];


In this case, the system dynamically allocates space for five elements of type int and returns a
pointer to the first element of the sequence, which is assigned to foo (a pointer).
Therefore, foo now points to a valid block of memory with space for five elements of type int.



Here, foo is a pointer, and thus, the first element pointed to by foo can be accessed either with
the expressionfoo[0] or the expression *foo (both are equivalent). The second element can be
accessed either with foo[1] or *(foo+1), and so on...

There is a substantial difference between declaring a normal array and allocating dynamic
memory for a block of memory using new. The most important difference is that the size of a
regular array needs to be a constant expression, and thus its size has to be determined at the
moment of designing the program, before it is run, whereas the dynamic memory allocation
performed by new allows to assign memory during runtime using any variable value as size.

The dynamic memory requested by our program is allocated by the system from the memory
heap. However, computer memory is a limited resource, and it can be exhausted. Therefore,
there are no guarantees that all requests to allocate memory using operator new are going to be
granted by the system.

C++ provides two standard mechanisms to check if the allocation was successful:

One is by handling exceptions. Using this method, an exception of type bad_alloc is thrown
when the allocation fails. Exceptions are a powerful C++ feature explained later in these
tutorials. But for now, you should know that if this exception is thrown and it is not handled by a
specific handler, the program execution is terminated.

This exception method is the method used by default by new, and is the one used in a declaration
like:
foo = new int [5]; // if allocation fails, an exception is thrown


The other method is known as nothrow, and what happens when it is used is that when a
memory allocation fails, instead of throwing a bad_alloc exception or terminating the program,
the pointer returned by new is a null pointer, and the program continues its execution normally.

This method can be specified by using a special object called nothrow, declared in
header <new>, as argument fornew:
foo = new (nothrow) int [5];


In this case, if the allocation of this block of memory fails, the failure can be detected by
checking if foo is a null pointer:
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int * foo;
foo = new (nothrow) int [5];
if (foo == nullptr) {
// error assigning memory. Take measures.
}


This nothrow method is likely to produce less efficient code than exceptions, since it implies
explicitly checking the pointer value returned after each and every allocation. Therefore, the
exception mechanism is generally preferred, at least for critical allocations. Still, most of the
coming examples will use the nothrow mechanism due to its simplicity.

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