I'm trying to add pointers to a vector in C++. As such:
Puzzle * puzzleStart = new Puzzle();
std::vector<Puzzle*> OPEN;
OPEN.push_back(puzzleStart);
The first time a pointer is pushed, there is no problem. The second time, it causes a crash. I'm guessing the issue is the size of the vector, but I don't understand why. Is there anything more to this?
Update: You are right, the problem is elsewhere, I just realized that it occurs while I free the vector of pointer. There is another issue, if the vector contains dupplicates of pointers I think.
if (OPEN.size()!=0){
for (int i = 0; i < OPEN.size(); ++i) {
delete OPEN[i]; // Calls ~object and deallocates *tmp[i]
}
OPEN.clear();
}
How do i make sure that it doesn't try to erase allready deleted pointers?
You are right, the problem is elsewhere, I just realized that it occurs while I free the vector of pointer. There is another issue, if the vector contains dupplicates of pointers I think.
if (OPEN.size()!=0){
for (int i = 0; i < OPEN.size(); ++i) {
delete OPEN[i]; // Calls ~object and deallocates *tmp[i]
}
OPEN.clear();
}
How do i make sure that it doesn't try to erase allready deleted pointers?
If the problem is duplication of pointers, you should consider a container that does not allow duplication, such as a set. E.g.:
std::set<Puzzle*> s;
Puzzle *puzz = new Puzzle();
auto insert_result = s.insert(puzz);
if(!insert_result.second)
{
std::cout << "\"puzz\" was a duplication. No insertion made.\n";
}
// More items inserted into s, and used, etc.
for(auto p : s)
delete p;
s.clear();
When you delete the pointer, set it to nullptr. Deleting a null pointer does not cause a crash.
Related
Assuming I have this program below
The size of the array is 3 and basically when deleting it and then try to print the size again , I still get the value 3 .
Why is that ?
#include <vector>
#include <iostream>
int main(){
std::vector<int*> v;
v.push_back(new int{1});
v.push_back(new int{2});
v.push_back(new int{3});
std::cout << v.size() << '\n';
for (auto iptr : v){
delete iptr;
}
std::cout << v.size() << '\n';
return 0;
}
Because you deleted whatever was pointed by the pointer
vector<CPerson *> Persons;
As far as the vector is concerned, it still has 3 pointers pointing somewhere.Beware, you are not permitted to dereference them pointers, otherwise you will invoke undefined behavior).
You have a vector of pointers. Using delete on a pointer in that vector will delete the thing the pointer is pointing at. It does not remove the pointer itself from the vector, and so does not change the size of the vector. Why should it? How could it?
Here the code you were looking for (I guess):
for (int i = 0; i < Persons.size(); i++)
{
CPerson *Student = Persons[i];
if (Student)
{
Persons.erase(Persons.begin() + i);
delete Student;
i--;
}
}
Note:
vector::erase is (one way) to remove items from a vector.
The cast is unnecessary, because your base class has a virtual destructor.
Erasing items from a vector while you are iterating through it is tricky because the size of the vector changes when you erase an item and all the later items in the vector move down one place, that why I have i-- to compensate, without that you will at least skip items and at worst iterate off the end of the vector.
When you delete the pointers that are in the vector, it just deletes the memory that you assigned to them with new, it doesn't do anything about the fact that you have a pointer, there for you are cleaning up memory that is outside of the vector, the vector will clean it self up at the end of the scope. (In this case, the end of the function.) Just remember, the vector doesn't clean up your new memory, you have to clean that up.
Using Valgrind, I see that I have a problem while deleting the memory in the following function:
Obj1 Obj1::operator*(const Obj1& param) const {
int n = param.GetSize(2);
Obj2** s = new Obj2*[n];
for( int i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
s[i] = new Obj2(*this*param.GetColumn(i+1));
}
Obj1 res = foo(s,n);
for(int i=n-1;i>-1;i--) {
s[i]->~Obj2();
}
delete[] s;
return res;
Valgrind tells me that the leak comes from the line
s[i] = new Obj2(*this*param.GetColumn(i+1));
I'm not pretty sure if the problem is when I try to free the memory. Can anyone tell me how to fix this problem?
Here:
s[i] = new Obj2(*this*param.GetColumn(i+1));
you create a dynamic object and assign s[i]to point to it.
In order to delete it, you do this:
delete s[i];
Unless you do that, the allocation will leak.
You must repeat that in a loop for every i just like you repeated the allocations. You of course have to do this before you delete s itself.
s[i]->~Obj2();
Don't do that. Calling the destructor is not appropriate here. delete will call the destructor.
P.S. Don't use raw owning pointers. Use containers or smart pointers instead. std::vector is a standard containers for dynamic arrays.
P.P.S. You should avoid unnecessary dynamic allocation. Your example doesn't demonstrate any need to allocate the pointed objects dynamically. So, in this case you should probably use std::vector<Obj2>.
i am currently working on a programm, where i read Information from various CAN signals and store them in 3 different vectors.
For each signal, a new pointer to an object is created an stored in two vectors.
My question is, when i am deleting the vectors, is it enough, when i delete the pointers to the objects in one vector and just clear the other one.
Here is my code:
Declaration of vectors an iterator:
std::vector <CAN_Signal*> can_signals; ///< Stores all CAN signals, found in the csv file
std::vector <CAN_Signal*> can_signals_rx; ///< Stores only the Rx CAN signals, found in the csv file
std::vector <CAN_Signal*> can_signals_tx; ///< Stores only the Tx CAN signals, found in the csv file
std::vector <CAN_Signal*>::iterator signal_iterator; ///< Iterator for iterating through the varoius vectors
Filling the vectors:
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < m_number_of_lines; ++i)
{
string s = csv_file.get_line(i);
CAN_Signal* can_signal = new CAN_Signal(s, i);
if (can_signal->read_line() == false)
return false;
can_signal->generate_data();
can_signals.push_back(can_signal);
if (get_first_character(can_signal->get_PDOName()) == 'R')
{
can_signals_rx.push_back(can_signal);
}
else if (get_first_character(can_signal->get_PDOName()) == 'T')
{
can_signals_tx.push_back(can_signal);
}
else
{
cout << "Error! Unable to detect whether signal direction is Rx or Tx!" << endl;
return false;
}
}
Deleting the vectors:
File_Output::~File_Output()
{
for (signal_iterator = can_signals.begin(); signal_iterator != can_signals.end(); ++signal_iterator)
{
delete (*signal_iterator);
}
can_signals.clear();
//for (signal_iterator = can_signals_rx.begin(); signal_iterator != can_signals_rx.end(); ++signal_iterator)
//{
// delete (*signal_iterator);
//}
can_signals_rx.clear();
//for (signal_iterator = can_signals_tx.begin(); signal_iterator != can_signals_tx.end(); ++signal_iterator)
//{
// delete (*signal_iterator);
//}
can_signals_tx.clear();
cout << "Destructor File_Output!" << endl;
}
When i uncomment the commented for-loops and run the Programm, it crashes, when the destructor is called.
So my guess is, that this is the correct way of doing so, because the pointers are allready deleted and it is enough to just clear remaining two vectors.
But i am not really sure and would really like to hear the opinion of an expert on this.
Thank you very much.
when i am deleting the vectors, is it enough, when i delete the pointers to the objects in one vector and just clear the other one.
Since the pointers in the other vectors are copies, not only is it sufficient to delete them only in the one vector, but deleting the copies would in fact have undefined behaviour. You don't ever want your program to have undefined behaviour.
Clearing any of the vectors in the destructor of File_Output seems to be unnecessary, assuming the vectors are members of File_Output. This is because the members are about to be destroyed anyway.
Am I deleting my vector of pointers to objects correctly?
With the assumption that you didn't make copies of the pointers that you delete elsewhere: Yes, that is the correct way to delete them.
Your code has a memory leak:
CAN_Signal* can_signal = new CAN_Signal(s, i);
if (can_signal->read_line() == false)
return false;
If that condition is true, then the newly allocated CAN_Signal will be leaked since the pointer is neither deleted nor stored anywhere when the function returns.
Your code is not exception safe: If any of these lines throws, then the pointer is leaked.
if (can_signal->read_line() == false)
return false;
can_signal->generate_data();
can_signals.push_back(can_signal);
It is unclear, why you would want to use explicit memory management in the first place. Unless there is a reason, I recommend that you don't do that and instead use std::vector <CAN_Signal> can_signals. This would fix your problems with memory leaks and exception safety, remove the need to implement a custom destructor, and make the implementation of copy/move constructor/assignment of File_Output simpler.
Note that if you do that, you must reserve the memory for the elements for can_signals to prevent reallocation because the pointers in other vectors would be invalidated upon reallocation. As a side-effect, this makes the program slightly faster.
I have a vector of pointers like so:
vector<Item*> items;
I want to clear it. I've tried:
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < items.size(); i++)
delete items.at(i);
items.clear();
,
while (!items.empty())
{
delete items.back();
items.pop_back();
}
,
while (!items.empty())
{
delete items.at(0);
items.erase(items.begin());
}
, and
while (!items.empty())
delete items.at(0);
Every single one of these blows up for some reason or another, including deletion of already deleted objects and out of range vector iterators.
What do I do? I want to be able to reuse that same vector and add more Item pointers into it later. Just using delete without clearing still leaves junk pointers in there, right?
EDIT: Okay, I've switched to shared_ptrs. Now I have
vector<shared_ptr<Item> > items;
Yet, when I do items.clear(); , I get the error "vector iterators incompatible". What am I still doing wrong?
I ran a test with all your ways of deleting stuff, and one of them simply doesn't work. See the code below for the comments on them.
To answer your question "what do I do," here is what I do when I seg-fault on a delete:
1) Make sure the memory is mine (do I know where the corresponding new is)?
2) Make sure I didn't delete the memory already (if I did, even if it WAS mine, it isn't now).
3) If you're pretty sure your seg-fault is caused by a single section of your code, break it out into a small test case in another project (kind of like you did in your question). Then play with it. If you had run your code examples up top in a small project you would have seen the seg-fault on the last one, and you would have noted the deletes worked in every other case. Breaking the code down like this would have let you know that you need to trace how you are storing these in your vector to see where you are losing ownership of them (via delete, or passing them to something that deletes them, etc...).
A side note: as others are saying, if you can use smart pointers do so, they will take care of the memory management for you. However, please continue your study here and understand how to use pointers that are dumb. There are times when you can not import boost, or have QT do your memory management for you. Also, there are times when you MUST store pointers in a container so don't be afraid to do that either (IE: QT developers STRONGLY suggest using pointers to store widgets instead of references or anything of the sort).
#include <vector>
using namespace std;
class Item
{
public:
int a;
};
int main()
{
vector<Item *> data;
for(int x = 0; x < 100; x++)
{
data.push_back(new Item());
}
//worked for me, and makes sense
for(int x = 0; x < 100; x++)
{
delete data.at(x);
}
data.clear();
for(int x = 0; x < 100; x++)
{
data.push_back(new Item());
}
//worked for me, and makes sense
while (!data.empty())
{
delete data.back();
data.pop_back();
}
data.clear();
for(int x = 0; x < 100; x++)
{
data.push_back(new Item());
}
// //worked for me, and makes sense
while (!data.empty())
{
delete data.at(0);
data.erase(data.begin());
}
for(int x = 0; x < 100; x++)
{
data.push_back(new Item());
}
// //This one fails, you are always trying to delete the 0th position in
// //data while never removing an element (you are trying to delete deleted memory)
// while (!data.empty())
// {
// delete data.at(0);
// }
return 0;
}
Either use a vector of smart pointers like this:
vector<shared_ptr<Item> > myVect;
Or use the Pointer Containers library in boost.
There may be a way to do this and re-use things, but it seems error-prone and a lot more work, especially considering Pointer Containers in boost is a header-only library.
use boost::shared_ptr<Item> and they will be deleted when the vector is cleared, or the element is deleted.
What do I do?
Don't maintain a vector of pointers. Really, it's almost always a mistake and you are fighting against the design of the vector (RAII) which takes care of memory management for you. You now have to call delete on every pointer.
Do you really need a vector of pointers? If you really do (not just think you do, but it is actually a requirement for one reason or another), then use smart pointers.
The vector will dynamically allocate memory for you, just use it as it was intended to be used.
It sounds as if you have the same pointer(s) repeated in your vector. To be sure you are only deleting them once just transfer them to a std::set and delete them there. For example,
std::set<Item*> s( items.begin(), items.end() );
items.clear();
while ( !s.empty() )
{
delete *s.begin();
s.erase( s.begin() );
}
Well, I did it. After a lot of time, a lot of aspirin, and a lot of lost hair, I finally figured out what the problem was. Turns out that I was calling a particular destructor earlier that contained the class which contained this vector of pointers. I had no idea that just calling a destructor would cause it to wipe all static data members. I hate c++ sometimes.
I have a vector of pointers to a class. I need to call their destructors and free their memory. Since they are vector of pointers vector.clear() does not do the job.So I went on to do it manually like so :
void Population::clearPool(std::vector<Chromosome*> a,int size)
{
Chromosome* c;
for(int j = 0 ;j < size-1;j++)
{
c = a.back();
a.pop_back();
delete c;
printf(" %d \n\r",j);
c = NULL;
}
}
The printf in there is since I have a talking destructor to see in which Chromosome the segmentation fault happens. When clearPool() is called and say we got a size of 100, it can give a segmentation fault in any Chromosome between 0 and 100.
I have no idea why this might be happening nor do I have a way to actually find what's wrong since while debugging with breakpoints all I see is that it happens in there at random chromosomes.
I am using codeblocks IDE and the gdb debugger. The stack trace when the segmentation fault happens has 4 memory addresses and a function wsncpy().
void Population::clearPool( std::vector <Chromosome*> & a )
{
for ( int i = 0; i < a.size(); i++ ) {
delete a[i];
}
a.clear();
}
Notice that the vector is passed by reference. In your code, a copy of the vector is used, which means that it is unchanged in the calling program. Because you delete the pointers in the copy, the pointers in the original are now all invalid - I suspect you are using those invalid pointers in some way not shown in the code you posted.
As a couple of template solutions have been posted that use C++ library algorithms, you might also want to consider a template solution that does not:
template <class C> void FreeClear( C & cntr ) {
for ( typename C::iterator it = cntr.begin();
it != cntr.end(); ++it ) {
delete * it;
}
cntr.clear();
}
Using this you can free any container of dynamically allocated objects:
vector <Chromosome *> vc;
list <Chromosome *> lc;
// populate & use
FreeClear( lc );
FreeClear( vc );
Slight modified version compared to (#1800 INFORMATION).
struct DeleteFromVector
{
template <class T>
void operator() ( T* ptr) const
{
delete ptr;
}
};
std::for_each(aVec.begin(), aVec.end(), DeleteFromVector());
I don't know why you are crashing, but I guess that one possibility is that the size of the vector is not the same as the size you are passing in. Also I notice you are iterating from 0 to size-2, do you not mean to go all the way to the end?
One way to delete all of the items in the array using idiomatic C++ is something like this:
template<class T>
class deleter
{
public:
void operator()(const T* it) const
{
delete it;
}
};
std::for_each(a.begin(), a.end(), deleter<Chromosome>());
Boost lambda already has a functor for deleting sequences of pointers, by the way:
std::for_each(a.begin(), a.end(), boost::lambda::delete_ptr());
Are you sure that each pointer in the vector points to a different object?
(i.e. that two pointers don't both point to the same object, which you're trying to delete twice.
Are you sure that you don't delete some of the pointers before calling this method?
(i.e. are you sure that each pointer in the list points to a valid object?)
The most likely reason is calling delete twice for the same address. This can happen if you added one object more than once to the vector. To detect this insert some statement that will output the address of the object you will then delete.
printf( "will delete %d\n", (int)c );
delete c;
I found the problem.
It was in the most well hidden (by none other than stupid old me) place it could be.
As some might have guessed this is a genetic algorithms program. It is for a tutorial I am making. I was choosing the crossover points for the chromosomes randomly from a roulette wheel function which I made. Well ... inside there, there was a -1 which should not be there. That destroyed literally everything, and eventually lead to a segmentation fault.
Thank you all for your help, I saw some really good practises in this post which I intend to follow
I recommend to use smart pointer (ie:auto_ptr) instead of raw pointer and just use vector::clear method that will call the destructor for each element
void Population::clearPool(std::vector<Chromosome*>& a)
{
for(size_t i = 0; i < a.size(); i++) {
delete a[i];
}
a.clear();
}
It seems, that some pointers in your code do not reference correct Chromosome objects. This may happen, if you try to delete some objects twice as a result of code:
Population p;
vector<Chromosome*> chromosomes;
p.clearPool(chromosomes,chromosomes.size()); // You pass by value, so chromosomes is not changed
p.clearPool(chromosomes,chromosomes.size()); // Delete already deleted objects second time
You may find useful ptr_vector from Boost Pointer Container Library in order to avoid similar errors