Allocating memory in code

C++ defines two operators, new and delete, that allocate memory from the free store and release memory back into the free store.

Allocating individual objects

The new operator is used with the type to allocate memory, and it will return a typed pointer to that memory:

    int *p = new int; // allocate memory for one int

The new operator will call the default constructor for custom types for every object it creates (as explained in Chapter 6, Classes). Built-in types do not have constructors, so instead a type initialization will occur and this will usually initialize the object to zero (in this example, a zero integer).

In general, you should not use memory allocated for built-in types without explicitly...