A class that needs a destructor

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Lecture 3 - Page 10 : 36

Notes about C++
Abstraction Mechanisms, Part 1

A class that needs a destructor

An example where it is necessary to program a destructor

For sake of the example we introduce a dynamically allocated representation of points

Class Point - with a pointer representation .

Implementation of class point - with an insufficient destructor .

A sample program with memory leaks.

Class Point - with a pointer representation - same as before.

Implementation of class point - now with a destructor that deallocates the Point representation.

A sample program - now without memory leaks.

Output from the program.

Point destruction - now with a problematic point copy constructor

If an object o allocates resources when constructed - or during its life time - o's destructor is responsible for relinquishing these resources when o is deleted or goes out of scope.

If o does not allocate such resources, its destructor is typcially not programmed