What is destructor?
Destructor is a member function which destructs or deletes an object.
When is destructor called?
A destructor function is called automatically when the object goes out of scope:
(1) the function ends
(2) the program ends
(3) a block containing local variables ends
(4) a delete operator is called
How destructors are different from a normal member function?
Destructors have same name as the class preceded by a tilde (~)
Destructors don’t take any argument and don’t return anything
class String { private: char *s; int size; public: String(char *); // constructor ~String(); // destructor }; String::String(char *c) { size = strlen(c); s = new char[size+1]; strcpy(s,c); } String::~String() { delete []s; } |
Can there be more than one destructor in a class?
No, there can only one destructor in a class with classname preceded by ~, no parameters and no return type.
When do we need to write a user-defined destructor?
If we do not write our own destructor in class, compiler creates a default destructor for us. The default destructor works fine unless we have dynamically allocated memory or pointer in class. When a class contains a pointer to memory allocated in class, we should write a destructor to release memory before the class instance is destroyed. This must be done to avoid memory leak.
Can a destructor be virtual?
Yes, In fact, it is always a good idea to make destructors virtual in base class when we have a virtual function. See virtual destructor for more details.
You may like to take a quiz on destructors.
Related Articles :
Constructors in C++
Virtual Destructor
Pure virtual destructor in C++
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