Debug Assertion Failed! Wrong memory freeing

Question

I have a problem which appear while processing with dynamically allocated memory. I was looking for similar problems but unfortunately none of solution helped me. Code of my class looks like below:

Declaration of my class:

class StructuralElement
{
    private:
    short rows;
    short columns;
    short *se;
    friend class Morph;
public:
    StructuralElement(char *path);
    ~StructuralElement();
    short getAt(short row, short column);
    int getSize();
};

Definition of my class:

StructuralElement::StructuralElement(char *path)
{
std::string line;
short rows=0, elements=0;
short it = 0;
std::string token;
try
{
    std::ifstream file(path);                   //counting rows and columns in a file!
    if (file.is_open() == NULL){ CannotOpenException ex; throw ex; }
    if (file.fail()) { CannotOpenException ex; throw ex; }
    while (getline(file,line))
    {
        rows++;
        std::stringstream ss(line);
        while (getline(ss, token, ' '))
        {
            elements++;
        }

    }
    file.close();
    this->rows = rows;
    if (rows!=0)
    this->columns = (elements/rows);
    se = new short[elements];

    std::ifstream file2(path);
    if (!file2.is_open()) throw;
    while (getline(file2, line))
    {
        std::stringstream ss(line);
        while (getline(ss, token, ' '))
        {
            this->se[it++] = (static_cast<int>(token.at(0))-48);        
        }
    }
    file2.close();
}
catch (CannotOpenException &ex)
    {
    std::cerr << "Error occured! Unable to load structural element!";
    }
}

StructuralElement::~StructuralElement()
{
    if (se != NULL) delete[] se;
}

When program will have already finish working and there appear text :" Cick any key...." in a console, then I receive error:

Debug Assertion Failed

.......

Expression: _BLOCK_TYPR_IS_VALID(pHeap->nBlockUse)

When I change line se = new short[elements]; to this one: se = new short[];
Then I get message: Program has triggered in a breakpoint.

What I made wrong? Thank You in advance for any tips.

Answer 1

There's a very good chance you're doing a double delete.

Your class doesn't have a copy constructor or assignment operator, yet you're managing resources in a non-RAII fashion. That's most likely the cause of the problem. Implement a proper copy constructor and assignment operator that actually makes deep copies of your data members.