CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++arrayspointersnew-operator
Master Chief
Master Chief

Reputation: 2541

What is meant by the statement new employee *[num] in C++

I came across this statement in a book.

new employee *[num];

where employee has already been declared as struct employee and num is an int;

this is on the right hand side of = operator on the statement.

So, what is meant by that statment? The book doesn't offer any explanation of the said statement.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 205

Answers (2)

4pie0
4pie0

Reputation: 29744

This will allocate a memory required to hold num number of pointers to employee on the free store.

e.g:

employee** a = new employee* [2]; // 2 pointers on the heap

heap:

address a (e.g. 0x97a0008): pointer1 to employee

address a + 1 ( 0x97a000c): pointer2 to employee

Side note: you use delete[] on arrays so you can delete above with delete[] a BUT you will have to loop first through all entries if you have allocated memory for them so it have to be freed before you loose the pointer.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/13477214/1141471

Upvotes: 7

Doonyx
Doonyx

Reputation: 590

Think it is like this,

typedef employee* TEmployee;
TEmployee * ap = new TEmployee[10];

So, it allocates memory for dynamic array of size 10 type TEmployee (not employee). It is as simple as,

int * aip = new int[10];

TEmployee itself is a pointer type to employee.

Upvotes: 2

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