8. Inheritance and Polymorphism

[Cuchulainn]

What's 'wrong' with this code?



class B

{ // Class with non-virtual destructor

private:

double* d;

public:

B() { d = new double (1.0); }

~B() { cout << "Base destructor\n"; delete d; }





};



class D : public B

{ // Derived class

private:

int* iarr;

public:

D(int N) : B() { iarr = new int[N]; }

~D() { cout << "Derived destructor\n"; delete [] iarr; }

};





int main()

{

{

B* b = new D(10);

delete b;

}





return 0;

}

[ImplicitScheme]

The short answer is the code makes a memory leak. The line



B * b = new D(6) ;



will call the constructor for D and allocate memory on the heap for D's private data member iarr. Since the destructor in class B is not marked as virtual when delete is called on object b only the base class destructor will be called and the memory allocated for iarr will be never be recovered.

[Cuchulainn]

Correct!