delete pointer after return value

Question

hello I have the following functions:

Block* Keywords::parseBlock(TiXmlElement* element)
{
    double x1 = atoi(element->Attribute("left"));
    double y1 = atoi(element->Attribute("top"));
    double x2 = atoi(element->Attribute("right"));
    double y2 = atoi(element->Attribute("bottom"));
    double width  = abs(x2 - x1);
    int bid = atoi(element->Attribute("id"));

    vector<LineElement*> lines;
    for (TiXmlElement* sub = element->FirstChildElement("line"); sub; sub = sub->NextSiblingElement("line"))
        lines.push_back(parseLine(sub));

    return new Block(y2,x2,y1,x1,bid,width, lines);
}///End function parse Block

LineElement* Keywords::parseLine(TiXmlElement* element)
{
    double x1 = atoi(element->Attribute("left"));
    double y1 = atof(element->Attribute("top"));
    double x2 = atoi(element->Attribute("right"));
    double y2 =  atoi(element->Attribute("bottom"));
    int bid = atoi(element->Attribute("id"));

    vector<Element*> words;
    for (TiXmlElement* sub = element->FirstChildElement("word"); sub; sub = sub->NextSiblingElement("word"))
        words.push_back(parseWord(sub));

    return new LineElement(y2,x2,y1,x1,bid,words);
}///End function parse Line

Element * Keywords::parseWord(TiXmlElement* element)
{
    string w =element->Attribute("value");
    double x1 = atoi(element->Attribute("left"));
    double y1 = atoi(element->Attribute("top"));
    double x2 = atoi(element->Attribute("right"));
    double y2 = atoi(element->Attribute("bottom"));
    int bid = atoi(element->Attribute("id"));

    vector<Letter*> chars;

    for (TiXmlElement* sub = element->FirstChildElement("char"); sub; sub = sub->NextSiblingElement("char"))
        chars.push_back(parseChar(sub));

    return new  Element(w,y1, x1, y2,x2,-1,bid,chars);
}///End function parse word

Letter * Keywords::parseChar(TiXmlElement* element)
{
    string w = element->Attribute("value");
    double x1 = atoi(element->Attribute("left"));
    double y1 = atoi(element->Attribute("top"));
    double x2 = atoi(element->Attribute("right"));
    double y2 =  atoi(element->Attribute("bottom"));
    int bid = atoi(element->Attribute("id"));
    return new Letter(w,y1,x1,y2,x2,bid);
}

I think that I have a memory leak, How can I delete the pointer after returning it? How can I use the destructor to free the memory I am getting a Run-Time error bad:alloc

Answer 1

The easiest way to fix this, like @BalogPal said, is to stop treating C++ like Java. There's no reason to return pointers from any of these functions. Try something like this:

Block Keywords::parseBlock(TiXmlElement* element)
{
    double x1 = atoi(element->Attribute("left"));
    double y1 = atoi(element->Attribute("top"));
    double x2 = atoi(element->Attribute("right"));
    double y2 = atoi(element->Attribute("bottom"));
    double width = abs(x2 - x1);
    int bid = atoi(element->Attribute("id"));

    vector<LineElement> lines;
    for (TiXmlElement* sub = element->FirstChildElement("line"); sub; sub = sub->NextSiblingElement("line"))
        lines.push_back(parseLine(sub));

    return Block(y2, x2, y1, x1, bid, width, lines);
}

LineElement Keywords::parseLine(TiXmlElement* element)
{
    double x1 = atoi(element->Attribute("left"));
    double y1 = atof(element->Attribute("top"));
    double x2 = atoi(element->Attribute("right"));
    double y2 = atoi(element->Attribute("bottom"));
    int bid = atoi(element->Attribute("id"));

    vector<Element> words;
    for (TiXmlElement* sub = element->FirstChildElement("word"); sub; sub = sub->NextSiblingElement("word"))
        words.push_back(parseWord(sub));

    return LineElement(y2, x2, y1, x1, bid, words);
}

Element Keywords::parseWord(TiXmlElement* element)
{
    string w = element->Attribute("value");
    double x1 = atoi(element->Attribute("left"));
    double y1 = atoi(element->Attribute("top"));
    double x2 = atoi(element->Attribute("right"));
    double y2 = atoi(element->Attribute("bottom"));
    int bid = atoi(element->Attribute("id"));

    vector<Letter> chars;

    for (TiXmlElement* sub = element->FirstChildElement("char"); sub; sub = sub->NextSiblingElement("char"))
        chars.push_back(parseChar(sub));

    return Element(w, y1, x1, y2, x2, -1, bid, chars);
}

Letter Keywords::parseChar(TiXmlElement* element)
{
    string w = element->Attribute("value");
    double x1 = atoi(element->Attribute("left"));
    double y1 = atoi(element->Attribute("top"));
    double x2 = atoi(element->Attribute("right"));
    double y2 = atoi(element->Attribute("bottom"));
    int bid = atoi(element->Attribute("id"));
    return Letter(w, y1, x1, y2, x2, bid);
}

The only reason I left the arguments as pointers is that's what your TiXmlElement 's FirstChildElement() and NextSiblingElement() functions return. Normally, I would make them references ( TiXmlElement &element ) instead, which is even safer, since you can't pass NULL .

If you really need to avoid the copying for performance reasons, and your compiler isn't smart enough to do that automatically, you can use smart pointers , which are reference counted, so you don't need to need to worry about delete ing them.

std::shared_pointer<Block> Keywords::parseBlock(TiXmlElement* element)
{
    double x1 = atoi(element->Attribute("left"));
    double y1 = atoi(element->Attribute("top"));
    double x2 = atoi(element->Attribute("right"));
    double y2 = atoi(element->Attribute("bottom"));
    double width = abs(x2 - x1);
    int bid = atoi(element->Attribute("id"));

    vector<std::shared_pointer<LineElement> > lines;
    for (TiXmlElement* sub = element->FirstChildElement("line"); sub; sub = sub->NextSiblingElement("line"))
        lines.push_back(parseLine(sub));

    return std::shared_pointer<Block>(new Block(y2, x2, y1, x1, bid, width, lines));
}

// etc.

Answer 2

You don't generally "return" pointers. You can pass a pointer into the function as a parameter, and assign a value to it in your function. Since a pointer is a memory location, this value will remain in the pointer when your function returns. You can then do any memory management after you have used the pointer for what you want.