Re: returning dynamically allocated object through reference
On Jan 21, 7:52 pm, munda...@gmail.com wrote:
hello,
I'd like to know if this code is going to create a memory leak in the
calling function (this codes compiles):
ili::IntImg
&RectangleImageComparator::synchronize(const ili::IntImg &pImage)
{
ili::IntImg *tempObj = new ili::IntImg(pImage);
return *tempObj;
}
i wanted to return a reference because it's faster because the object
is not copied but passed directly, isn't it?. My question is if the
calling function will free automatically the object returned, if I do:
// in the calling function I'd do:
ili::IntImg myVar = synchronize(image); // will myVar be destroyed
automatically???
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I'm not a C++ expert, but I will guess that yes your code will leak
memory for the following reason: the assignment operator will assign
the values of the right-hand-side object to the left-hand-side
object. The object on the right-hand-side, which was dynamically
created, must be manually destroyed to prevent a memory leak. The
rule of thumb is if "new" was called on an object, "delete" must also
be called to free the object. In this case, the caller of
"synchronize" wouldn't even be able to free the dynamically created
memory due to how it was written.
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