I'm working on a project, and need a char buffer to send a struct over a network. I was using:
char* buf = new char[sizeof(obj)];
Later, someone told me that I would be leaking memory if I did it that way without deleting. I debugged my program with Visual Studio 2017 Professional, and my memory sat constant, no matter how many times I made this buffer.
My question is this: did C++17 fix the memory leak issues that the 'new' operator could cause, or is this something specific to the compiler I'm using? Thanks in advance!
Calling new[] without delete[] will indeed leak memory. You might not see it unless you are leaking lots of buffers, depending on how your app's RTL allocates/caches memory under the hood.
Traditionally, using a std::vector<char>, or even a std::string, is the preferred choice for dynamic buffers, let them handle their own memory for you, eg:
std::vector<char> buf(sizeof(obj));
or
std::string buf(sizeof(obj), 0);
If you absolutely need new[]/delete[] for some reason, consider using std::unique_ptr<char[]> instead, let it call delete[] for you, eg:
std::unique_ptr<char[]> buf(new char[sizeof(obj)]);
or
auto buf = std::make_unique<char[]>(sizeof(obj));