C++ few istream pointer and refferecnes and refactoring - c++

Question

The function below works, but it's seems to me it has very bad smell.
My project communicate with device over HTTP, it has some url with digest authentication, some pages without.
Some url compressed with deflate, some none.
So my function has 3 different way to get istream.
And i need to read istream in one place in the bottom of function.
But as said good people from another my question C++ variable visable scopes and strems, pointers in this case is bad.
And in this code in some cases creates dynamic object.
Poco::InflatingInputStream* inflater = new Poco::InflatingInputStream(*respStreamPtr);
And this is path to memory leaks?
If create inflater without new statement, then *respStreamPtr has no data out of if block scope.
So, please give me advice how to refactor this code in right way.
std::ostream& requestStream = session->sendRequest(request);
istream* respStreamPtr;
respStreamPtr = &session->receiveResponse(response);
if (response.getStatus() == HTTPResponse::HTTP_UNAUTHORIZED)
{
credentials->authenticate(request, response);
session->sendRequest(request);
respStreamPtr = &session->receiveResponse(response);
}
if (response.has("Content-Encoding") && response.get("Content-Encoding") == "deflate") {
Poco::InflatingInputStream* inflater = new Poco::InflatingInputStream(*respStreamPtr);
respStreamPtr = &std::istream(inflater->rdbuf());
}
std::ostringstream stringStream;
stringStream << respStreamPtr->rdbuf();
responseBody = stringStream.str();

Answer 1

Yes, that will be a memory leak, as every time you use new it will create a new object, which you never delete
However, you use the inflater variable outside of the scope it's declared in, so currently have no way of nicely deleting it without modifying other code. For a simple fix, you could just declare Poco::InflatingInputStream* inflater = nullptr; at the top of your code, then delete it at the end.
I'd strongly recommend reading up on how to manage memory correctly in c++, and even taking a look at smart pointers (but not without learning the fundamentals first)
Poco actually has functionality which does a lot of what you're trying to do, so your example could be easily condensed (disclaimer: untested):
session->sendRequest(request);
auto& responseStream = session->receiveResponse(response);
if (response.getStatus() == HTTPResponse::HTTP_UNAUTHORIZED)
{
credentials->authenticate(request, response);
session->sendRequest(request);
responseStream = session->receiveResponse(response);
}
if (response.has("Content-Encoding") && response.get("Content-Encoding") == "deflate")
{
Poco::InflatingInputStream inflater(responseStream);
StreamCopier::copyStream(inflater, responseStream);
}
responseBody << responseStream;