I have some question about the operator "delete"

If I "new" the following array:

char * pointer = new char[3][4][5];

Then, how should I delete this array?
by "delete pointer", or by "delete [] pointer"?

Moreover, what is the different between "delete [] pointer" and "delete
pointer"?

THANKS

Hello,

By iterating through the different instances, ie.

for (i=0;i<3;i++)
{
        for(j=0;j<4;j++)
        {
                delete [] pointer[i][j];
        }
        delete [] pointer[i];

delete [] pointer;

"delete [] pointer" indicates to the compiler that a sequence of memory
segments are to be "deleted" (by reference) while "delete pointer" only
indicates that the first element should be deleted (ie the element on
the address that pointer is actually poining at)

Sincerely
tlwc

More to the point, while both delete and delete[] will deallocate all the
memory regardless of whether it's an array or single object, delete[] is
necessary to have the destructor called on all objects in the array.

Also, you can override both operator delete and operator delete[] seperately
(although I seem to remember reading that VC doesn't implement that
properly, but I don't remember where or what versions of VC this was about).
In that case it's no longer safe to assume that delete and delete[] do the
same thing for an array of destructor-less types.

In short, always use delete[] when dealing with an array.

--
Sven Groot

Nonsense. There was just one call to new - why do you think you need
multiple calls to delete[] ?
--
With best wishes,
    Igor Tandetnik

"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat,
and wrong." H.L. Mencken

It won't compile. The type of (new char[3][4][5]) expression is
char(*)[4][5], not char*
--
With best wishes,
    Igor Tandetnik

"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat,
and wrong." H.L. Mencken

Hello again Igor,

Well I ofcourse assumed that he shortened the question a bit. You need
to declare a char*** and create each array. Something like the example
below. The resulting 3-dim array will be a testarray[3][4][10].

#include <iostream.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
        int i=0,j=0;
        char ***testarray=NULL;
        testarray=new char**[3];
        for (i=0;i<3;i++)
        {
                testarray[i]=new char*[4];
                for (j=0;j<4;j++)
                {
                        testarray[i][j]=new char[10];
                        strcpy(testarray[i][j],"hejsan");
                }
        }
        for (i=0;i<3;i++)
        {
                for (j=0;j<4;j++)
                {      
                        cout<<i<<":"<<j<<"="<<testarray[i][j]<<endl;
                        delete [] testarray[i][j];
                }
                delete [] testarray[i];
        }
        delete [] testarray;

        return 0;

Sincerely
tlwc