What is the difference between destructors and delete?

Answer 1

Delete is a built-in operator used forcibly release a dynamically allocated resource. Delete can only be used on pointer types, including pointer arrays.

A destructor is a class method used to clean up any resources acquired by objects of the class. Destructors are invoked automatically from the most-derived class to the least-derived class, as soon as an object falls from scope.

When you delete a pointer to an object, the object's destructor sequence is invoked. Note that you must not delete named objects otherwise you end up with a null reference. References must never be null.

Answer 2

I'm presuming you mean the difference between delete and delete(). If not please clarify in the discussion section (punctuation is not permitted in questions).

There is no difference between delete and delete(). Delete is an operator implemented as a function so the operand (a dynamically allocated instance pointer) can be placed in parenthesis if desired, but is not required.

Answer 3

Delete is a C++ keyword that will de-allocate memory that was allocated using the "new" keyword. If delete is called on a class, the class will execute its destructor function before it is de-allocated. This is useful if your class allocated memory and needs to delete it before it is terminated. Otherwise a memory leak will occur.

Answer 4

delete can be used only with primitive types and arrays based on the types. operator delete cannot be used for classes because problems with tracking and permissions. To free memory occupied with some class distructor was invented which is called automatically every time a variable defined in of class leaves its scope.

Answer 5

You cannot call a destructor directly. They are called automatically when an object falls from scope.

delete is used in conjunction with the newoperator (similar to the way free is used in conjunction with malloc, calloc and realloc). When deleting an object instantiated with the new operator, the object's destructor is called automatically. Object references are deleted when they fall from scope (references can never be NULL while they are still in scope, and therefore cannot be deleted while in scope).

Answer 6

The destructor of a class is a method of the class that runs when the instance of class is about to be deleted. It does clean up that might be necessary, such as deallocating objects that were created on the heap. If the instance of the class represents a persistant object, such as a record in a database, the destructor is also responsible for deleting that record, depending on the class design.

Answer 7

We use the delete operator to release a memory resource that was previously allocated using the new operator.