SAMS Teach Yourself C++ in 10 Minutes SECOND EDITION

Deleting from the Heap

Deleting a heap-allocated pointer releases the storage it points to. delete comes in two forms: with [] (to delete an array), and without (to delete a regular variable).

Deleting is dangerous. Imagine what happens when you run this:

char *SomePointer = NULL;
delete SomePointer;

or this:

char *SomePointer;
delete SomePointer;

or:

char *SomePointer = new char;
delete SomePointer;
delete SomePointer;

or:

char *SomePointer = new char;
delete SomePointer;
char Stuff = *SomePointer;

As with using an invalid pointer or accessing beyond the end of an array, the consequences are unpredictable.