A class has overloaded operators new
and delete
. new
is public, delete
is private.
When constructing an instance of this class, I get the following error:
pFoo = new Foo(bar)
example.cpp(1): error C2248: 'Foo:operator delete': cannot access private member declared in class 'Foo'
But there's no call to delete
here, so what is going on in the twisted mind of the compiler? :)
- What is the reason for the error?
- Is it possible to resolve the problem without resorting to a member
CreateInstance
function?
When you do new Foo()
then two things happen: First operator new
is invoked to allocate memory, then a constructor for Foo
is called. If that constructor throws, since you cannot access the memory already allocated, the C++ runtime will take care of it by passing it to the appropriate operator delete
. That's why you always must implement a matching operator delete
for every operator new
you write and that's why it needs to be accessible.
As a way out you could make both of them private and invoke operator new
from a public member function (like create()
).
Check this. In one of the lower paragraphs it says that new requires delete to be accessable. Basically it says, you can only create objects on the heap, if you can also delete them again.
As per C++ Standards , When you have class with dynamically memory allocation and an exception is raised inside constructor, memory has to be freed to avoid memory leaks.
Here you have defined you own new operator as public , but delete is private .
So compiler is telling you that give me access to delete operator so that i can
prevent memory leak if any exception is raised in constructor.
If you don't define your delete operator , then also compiler will give an error and force you to define it.