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From: kearns@cs.columbia.edu (Steve Kearns)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: delete []
Keywords: arrays, new&delete
Message-ID: <1990Aug6.153136.3427@cs.columbia.edu>
Date: 6 Aug 90 15:31:36 GMT
References: <641@atcmpe.atcmp.nl> <1990Jul27.231220.8396@cerc.utexas.edu> <4937@pegasus.ATT.COM> <CIMSHOP!DAVIDM.90Jul30100622@uunet.UU.NET> <4942@pegasus.ATT.COM> <1568@idunno.Princeton.EDU> <4953@pegasus.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: kearns@cs.columbia.edu (Steve Kearns)
Followup-To: comp.lang.c++
Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science
Lines: 13

Re the conflict between "delete [] foo" and "delete foo":

The "right" way, of course, is for C++ to support the "Array of" type
constructor.  While this would require updating lots of existing code
(mainly, changing "fooType * f" to "fooType[] * f"), it would
eliminate a problem with C: the double role of pointers to objects and
pointers to arrays of objects.

Of course, any change that requires updating lots of code is unacceptable;
but I for one am looking forward to the day when D++ is available,
and we can shed all of these C bletcherisms and C++ complexities.

-steve