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From: schmidt@crimee.ics.uci.edu (Doug Schmidt)
Newsgroups: gnu.g++.bug
Subject: Re: array size expression for delete
Message-ID: <25E9CB6A.19890@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Date: 27 Feb 90 00:35:54 GMT
References: <9002262348.AA12899@maui.cs.ucla.edu>
Reply-To: schmidt@crimee.ics.uci.edu (Doug Schmidt)
Distribution: gnu
Organization: University of California, Irvine - Dept of ICS
Lines: 31
In-reply-to: rjc@CS.UCLA.EDU (Robert Collins)

In article <9002262348.AA12899@maui.cs.ucla.edu>, rjc@CS (Robert Collins) writes:
>Michael,
>
>When I use the syntax
>	delete [size] array;
>and compile with '-O -Wall',  I am told
>	file.cc: warning: array size expression for delete ignored
>
>
>This sounds ominous.  Is the [size] really ignored?  Is only the first
>element of my array being destroyed?  Is the warning bogus?  Is my code
>bogus?  Do you need some sample (bogus?) code?

Check the type of `array'.  If it is a pointer-to-built-in type, e.g.,
a char *, or int *, or double * then there is clearly no destructor,
so the `size' doesn't need to be used to free the memory (if the
compiler generates code to simply call free (array) this does the
trick).  On the other hand, if array points to objects of a
user-defined class type with a destructor then the size *does* matter
(since that many destructor calls must be made, one for each element
in the area pointed to by array).

Unless you've got an instance of the latter case I think everything is
ok!

  Doug
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