Seneca College

• OOP 244

• OOP FINALS REVIEW DYNAMIC ALLOCATION: ptr = new Type[size]; ptr = new Student[n]; ptr = new Student*[n + 1]; etc Dynamically allocated variables and objects, unlike statically allocated variables and objects, do not go out of scope when the braces it is defined in closes; must be explicitly deallocated by user. DYNAMIC DELLOCATION: delete ptr; delete[] ptr; if memory allocated with [], delete with []; if not, omit the []. Deallocation does not give memory back to the OS, it simply makes it available for other future dynamic allocations. Good practice to assign deallocated pointer to nullptr, but optional. MEMORY LEAKS: A memory leak occurs if an application loses the address of dynamically allocated memory before that memory has been deallocated. This may occur if  the pointer to dynamic memory goes out of scope before the application deallocates that memory  the pointer to dynamic memory changes its value before the application deallocates the memory starting at the address stored in that pointer Memory leaks are difficult to find because they often do not halt execution immediately. We might only become aware of their existence indirectly