Memory Management with returning char* function
- by RageD
Hello all,
Today, without much thought, I wrote a simple function return to a char* based on a switch statement of given enum values. This, however, made me wonder how I could release that memory. What I did was something like this:
char* func()
{
char* retval = new char;
// Switch blah blah - will always return some value other than NULL since default:
return retval;
}
I apologize if this is a naive question, but what is the best way to release the memory seeing as I cannot delete the memory after the return and, obviously, if I delete it before, I won't have a returned value. What I was thinking as a viable solution was something like this
void func(char*& in)
{
// blah blah switch make it do something
}
int main()
{
char* val = new char;
func(val);
// Do whatever with func (normally func within a data structure with specific enum set so could run multiple times to change output)
val = NULL;
delete val;
val = NULL;
return 0;
}
Would anyone have anymore insight on this and/or explanation on which to use?
Regards,
Dennis M.
