CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++classdestructor
alanlittle
alanlittle

Reputation: 470

C++ How to Trigger Class Destructor

I'm developing a class to process config files, which consist of a number of segments, each segment with a number of key:value elements. I have the following code (pared down to just the basic issue):

class cfgElement {
    public:
        char       *key;
        char       *val;
        cfgElement *link;

        cfgElement() {
            key = nullptr;
            val = nullptr;
            link = nullptr;
        }

       ~cfgElement() {
            if (key != nullptr) delete key;
            if (val != nullptr) delete val;
            key  = nullptr;
            val  = nullptr;
            link = nullptr;
        }
};

struct cfgSegment {
    char        Name[16];
    cfgElement  head;
};

class config {
    private:
        cfgSegment *segments;

    public:
        config() {
            segments = new cfgSegment[5];
        }

       ~config() {
           for (int i=0; i<5; i++) {
               // Clean up segments[i].head
           }
       }
};

If I declare a cfgElement in the main code, it of course triggers the destructor as expected. Those which are part of the segments[] array do not get triggered when the config object goes out of scope, and I can understand why not, but is there a way to get the cfgElement destructor to trigger for those? I can't delete them, as they are not pointers.

I could make the head element of cfgSegment a pointer, and loop over the segments[] array in the config constructor, allocating each cfgElement individually, but is that the only way to do it?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 707

Answers (1)

Nikita Smirnov
Nikita Smirnov

Reputation: 862

You need just to delete segments instead of deleting each object in the loop.

   ~config() {
         delete[] segments;
   }

Upvotes: 1

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