What is the difference between a destructor and a funtion that deallocates?

Question

What is the difference between the destructor and the DeAllocate function in this code?

I don't get it they look like the same thing to me.They do the exact same thing, why would you ever need a function like DeAllocate? Destructor has the benefit of being called automatically, but DeAllocate doesn't.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

const int SIZE=5;

class ARRAY_CLASS
{
public:
    ARRAY_CLASS();//default constructor
    ~ARRAY_CLASS(); //destructor
    void Add(int); //mutator
    void Print(); //accessor
    int * Get_Address(); //accessor
    void DeAllocate(); //mutator
private:

    int *A;
    int count;
};

ARRAY_CLASS::ARRAY_CLASS()
{
    cout<<"Default constructor has been called\n";
    A = new int[SIZE];
    count = 0;
}


ARRAY_CLASS::~ARRAY_CLASS()
{
    cout<<"The Destructor has been Called!\n";
    delete [ ] A;
    A=0;
    count = 0;
}

void ARRAY_CLASS::Add(int item)
{
    if (count<SIZE)
        A[count++]=item;
    else
        cout<<"Array Full\n";
}
void ARRAY_CLASS::Print()
{
    for(int i=0; i<count; i++)
        cout<<"A[i] = "<<A[i]<<endl;
}

int * ARRAY_CLASS::Get_Address()
{
    return A;
}

void ARRAY_CLASS::DeAllocate()
{
    delete [ ] A;
    A = 0;
    count = 0;
}

int main()
{

    ARRAY_CLASS B;

    B.Add(1);
    B.Add(2);
    B.Add(3);
    B.Add(4);
    B.Add(5);

    B.Print();

    ARRAY_CLASS A = B;

    cout<<"A holds address location = "<<A.Get_Address()
    <<" and B holds address location "<<B.Get_Address()<<endl;

    B.DeAllocate();
    A.Print();

    return 0;
}

Answer 1

One could indeed have rewritten the destructor:

ARRAY_CLASS::~ARRAY_CLASS()
{
    cout<<"The Destructor has been Called!\n";
    DeAllocate();
}

The difference is that:

• The destructor is invoked at destruction (either automatically for local objects when leaving the scope in which the object was created, or when the object gets deleted for freestore objects). After the object is destroyed, the object no longer exist.

• When you call DeAllocate(); the memory of the array is freed and the status of the object changes, but all its members and the ARRAY_CLASS object itself still exist.