Re: is such exception handling approach good?

From:

"Ben Voigt [C++ MVP]" <rbv@nospam.nospam>

Newsgroups:

microsoft.public.vc.language

Date:

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 09:20:38 -0600

Message-ID:

<e08pbvJSIHA.4684@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl>

"Norbert Unterberg" <nunterberg@newsgroups.nospam> wrote in message
news:udgKKRJSIHA.1188@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

George schrieb:

I am confused. If all the occupied resources (including memory) will be
automatically released when the process exits, why there are any cases
which will cause memory leak? (I think there is no memory leaked when the
process exits.)

Memory is freed when when the application exits. But as long as the
application does not exit, you are responsible for your memory. Some
programs run a long time. Imagine MS Word would leak a few bytes eevy time
you move the mouse or hit a key, you would have to restart it every now
and then). Or think of system services which never end except you rstart
them manually or shut down the OS.

And there can be other types of resource leaks. You could have locked a
global semaphore that was created by some other process. When your
application shuts down, the lock would not be released automagically.

If it is a Windows semaphore then yes it would be released.

So having resource leaks is bad, even if it does not cause harm in some
cases. Even minor resource leaks can add up over time, creating a huge
impact on the user or the OS. Sometimes it is ok to not free resources at
program shutdown, but usually only for resources that only exist once
(like configuration data that is read once at appliction start). But you
never know what will happen to your code in the future, so you'd better
always clean up after yourself.

Norbert