Memory leak after pointing to NEW object - c++

Question

struct StructA {
StructA(parameters) { ... } //StructA onstructor
};
struct StructB {
StructA *pObjectA;
int counter = 0;
void function() {
if (counter < 1) { pObjectA = new StructA[100]; }
pObjectA[counter] = *new StructA(parameters); //Memory leak here
counter++;
}
};
struct StructC {
StructB objectB;
~StructC() { //StructC destructor
delete[] objectB.pObjectA;
objectB.pObjectA = NULL;
}
};
int main() {
StructC objectC;
for (int i = 0; i < 900; i++) {
objectC.objectB.function();
}
return 0;
} //Struct C destructor here
I need to create an object array and then, with each call to objectB.function(), to pass specific parameters to the constructor of StructA. The code above works perfectly, except for the memory leak, which I am unable to get rid of.
My guess is that the StructC destructor deletes only the object array, not each *new StructA(parameters). I tried to play around with pointers and delete[] a little bit, but all I got was access memory violation errors. This is the only way I can think of that works. All help appreciated.

Answer 1

A class destructor should release resources that were acquired in its constructor. It seems like you wanted to defer deleting an array allocated in one class to the destructor of a second class. Thats never a good idea. In the best case you dont have to do anything in the destructor because you use automatic storage (means what the name suggest: memory is managed automatically).
Your code could look like this:
struct StructA {
StructA(parameters) { ... } //StructA onstructor
};
struct StructB {
std::vector<StructA> pObjectA;
int counter = 0;
void function() {
if (counter < 1) { pObjectA.reserve(100); }
pObjectA.emplace_back(parameters);
counter++;
}
};
struct StructC {
StructB objectB;
};
int main() {
StructC objectC;
for (int i = 0; i < 900; i++) {
objectC.objectB.function();
}
return 0;
}
Note that I tried to keep the structure as is maybe there are other things to change. For example you dont need counter, as you can use std::vector::size to query the number of elements in the vector.
PS: As you already noticed, this is a memory leak:
pObjectA[counter] = *new StructA(parameters); //Memory leak here
It is not really clear why you wrote that code in the first place. The idomatic way to create an object of type StructA is StructA a; (no new!).

Answer 2

As you correctly assumed, memory leaks are caused by not properly cleaning up all new with corresponsing delete. However in idiomatic C++ there's no use to use new and delete directly.
Use std::vector, std::shared_ptr and std::unique_ptr to let RAII keep track of dynamically created objects, references to them and when to clean up. Not only is it more robust, it's also a lot shorter and easier to read.
With your code's general overall structure:
#include <memory>
#include <vector>
struct StructA {
};
struct StructB {
std::vector<std::shared_ptr<StructA>> objectAs;
void function() {
objectAs.push_back(
std::make_shared<StructA>( /*parameters*/ )
);
}
};
struct StructC {
StructB objectB;
};
int main() {
StructC objectC;
for (int i = 0; i < 900; i++) {
objectC.objectB.function();
}
return 0;
}