Memory leak with pointer used without new operator

[mfactor]

Hello group,

I've created a linked list with a node class and a list class, and to
search the list, I use a pointer like this:

node * current = getFirst();

where getFirst() return the first node on the list. It works fine. My
doubt is about memory allocation: with this, I think I've just
referenced the pointer current to the address of the pointer to the
first node on the list. Do I need to call delete on the end of the
method?


class node {

node * first;
....
}

node* node::getFirst() {
return first;
}

somewhere in the code...

void list::search() {
node * current = getFirst();
while(current != NULL) {
//do stuff
}
}

 

[joseph cook]

Hello group,

I've created a linked list with a node class and a list class, and to
search the list, I use a pointer like this:

node * current = getFirst();

where getFirst() return the first node on the list. It works fine. My
doubt is about memory allocation: with this, I think I've just
referenced the pointer current to the address of the pointer to the
first node on the list. Do I need to call delete on the end of the
method?

No, you aren't allocating any memory dynamically here. You aren't
taking any ownership of the memory just by having a pointer to it.
Whatever code is adding these elements onto the list may have to
handle releasing memory, but that all depends on how that code is
written.

Joe Cook