C++ Primer, Fifth Edition

13.1.3. The Destructor

The destructor operates inversely to the constructors: Constructors initialize the nonstatic data members of an object and may do other work; destructors do whatever work is needed to free the resources used by an object and destroy the nonstatic data members of the object.

The destructor is a member function with the name of the class prefixed by a tilde (~). It has no return value and takes no parameters:

class Foo {public:    ~Foo();    // destructor   // ...};

Because it takes no parameters, it cannot be overloaded. There is always only one destructor for a given class.

What a Destructor Does

Just as a constructor has ...