C++ Primer Plus

Using new to Create Dynamic Structures

You’ve seen how it can be advantageous to create arrays during runtime rather than at compile time. The same holds true for structures. You need to allocate space for only as many structures as a program needs during a particular run. Again, the new operator is the tool to use. With it, you can create dynamic structures. Again, dynamic means the memory is allocated during runtime, not at compile time. Incidentally, because classes are much like structures, you are able to use the techniques you’ll learn in this section for structures with classes, too.

Using new with structures has two parts: creating the structure and accessing its members. To create a structure, you use the structure type with new. For ...