Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!hriso!attdso!westmark!mole-end!mat
From: mat@mole-end.UUCP (Mark A Terribile)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: operator delete -- static AND virtual ????
Summary: Static, types, and typelessness
Message-ID: <416@mole-end.UUCP>
Date: 1 Jun 90 03:56:41 GMT
References: <401@mole-end.UUCP> <29839@cup.portal.com> <413@mole-end.UUCP> <30161@cup.portal.com>
Organization: mole-end--private system.  admin: mole-end!newtnews
Lines: 35

> > when I write
> >         delete xp;
> > I am invoking a delete operator.
 
> Aha, here's part of the problem.  There is a difference between the delete
> operator and operator delete().  The definition of the delete operator is
> that it invokes the destructor, if any, and then invokes operator delete().

This distinction and this ordering don't seem to be well spelled out in the
Reference Manual; thank you for explaining them.

. . .
 
> > The exact words of the reference manual are that operator delete is static.
 
> In some sense, calling operator delete() "static" is arbitrary and a bit
> misleading; the only thing operator delete() has in common with static member
> functions is the absence of a "this" pointer.  The main idea of static member
> functions is that they can be invoked ...  i.e., without referring to a
> particular object, but that makes no sense for operator delete(): it has to
> be accessed via an object, although the object will have been destroyed
> before operator delete() gets control.  I think X3J16 may want to visit
> this issue of terminology as well.

Is the `object' really an object by the time  operator delete()  gets at it?
An object is a region of memory with a type, and the type is stripped when
the object is destroyed.  All that's left by the invocation of
operator delete()  is a typeless region of memory.  In an Aristotelian sense,
it's no longer a `thing,' it's just `stuff.'

I agree that the terminology would benefit from clarification.
-- 

 (This man's opinions are his own.)
 From mole-end				Mark Terribile