Re: new() and memcpy()

From:
pmouse <pmouse@cogeco.ca>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
4 May 2007 15:31:31 -0700
Message-ID:
<1178317891.931453.206950@y5g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>
barcaroller wrote:

Is it safe to use the result of 'new int[100]' in a memcpy().

Example:

    int* cpp_block = new int[100];
    int* c_block = some_c_function();

    memcpy(cpp_block, c_block, 100);

I suspect cpp_block may be pointing to more than just a simple array of
integers.

If it's not safe, I could use a vector instead of the 'new int[100]' but how
do I initialize the vector using the C-style array without having to iterate
over the vector one integer at a time?


If you haven't overloaded the new operator, this is what it does
(pseudo code):
int* cpp_block = (int*)malloc( sizeof(int) * 100 );
for ( int i = 0; i < 100; ++i )
   cpp_block[i]::int();

so yes, there is nothing more magical about the default new operator.
It is safe to copy it around (obviously the size of not 100, but
sizeof(int)*100, but i assume that you know what your doing)

run this code to see:

    int * new_arr = new int[100];
    int * old_arr = (int*)malloc( sizeof(int)*100 );
    memset( old_arr, 0, sizeof(int)*100);

    unsigned char* new_begin = (unsigned char*)new_arr;
    unsigned char* old_begin = (unsigned char*)old_arr;

    for ( int i = 0; i < sizeof(int)*100; ++i )
    {
        if ( *new_begin++ != *old_begin++ )
            cout << "problem!" << endl;
    }

    delete[] new_arr;
    free(old_arr);

On May 4, 6:21 pm, "barcaroller" <barcarol...@music.net> wrote:

Is it safe to use the result of 'new int[100]' in a memcpy().

Example:

    int* cpp_block = new int[100];
    int* c_block = some_c_function();

    memcpy(cpp_block, c_block, 100);

I suspect cpp_block may be pointing to more than just a simple array of
integers.

If it's not safe, I could use a vector instead of the 'new int[100]' but how
do I initialize the vector using the C-style array without having to iterate
over the vector one integer at a time?

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