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From: mckenney@sparkyfs.istc.sri.com (Paul Mckenney)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Objective suicide
Message-ID: <32393@sparkyfs.istc.sri.com>
Date: 4 Jul 90 19:35:47 GMT
References: <685@dyndata.UUCP> <276@taumet.com> <9299@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM> <282@taumet.com>
Reply-To: mckenney@itstd.sri.com (Paul E. McKenney)
Organization: SRI International, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Lines: 25

In article <685@dyndata.UUCP> dan@dyndata.UUCP (Dan Everhart) writes:
>Is it kosher for an object to delete itself?  To wit:
>class Obj
>   {
>   void Suicide () { /* ... */  delete this; }
>   }

The following example appears on page 66 of Ellis and Stroustrup:

	void X::my_delete(Arena* a)
	{
		this->X::~X();		// explicit call of destructor

		if (a)
			a->free((void*)this);
		else
			delete (void*)this;
	}

The text preceding the example says that my_delete is a virtual function
(the class body for X is not shown).  I presume that if there was no
Arena parameter, it would be safe to allow the delete operator invoke the
destructor (it has always worked for me... :-).

							Thanx, Paul