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Isn't "delete" so pesky to type? Wish there was a better way?

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Started by ApochPiQ August 01, 2014 07:09 PM

18 comments, last by Digitalfragment 9 years, 8 months ago

ApochPiQ

23,138

Author

August 01, 2014 07:09 PM

In C++, we know that memory management can be a large manual burden. Sometimes, though, it's just unavoidable, and we have to use new and delete.

A large part of the manual burden, of course, is actually typing delete, because it takes sooooo loooooong and is just annoying.

Thankfully, C++ has some special and little-known syntax to solve this headache! Suppose you have pointers (allocated via new, of course) named Foo, Bar, and Baz. All you need to do is this:

delete Foo, Bar, Baz;

Enjoy!

Wielder of the Sacred Wands
[Work - ArenaNet] [Epoch Language] [Scribblings]

Washu

7,836

August 01, 2014 07:16 PM

You are such a troll.

And that's why I love you.

In time the project grows, the ignorance of its devs it shows, with many a convoluted function, it plunges into deep compunction, the price of failure is high, Washu's mirth is nigh.

fastcall22

10,918

August 01, 2014 07:21 PM

if ( Washu == phil67rpg, fir, cthulu )
    this->eat(rope);

Nypyren

12,313

August 01, 2014 07:44 PM

I'm honestly worried that some people might read that and not know that you're trolling.

If I ever see that in the wild, I'll know who to blame.

Datamancer

3,036

August 01, 2014 07:54 PM

#define delete d

"The code you write when you learn a new language is shit.
You either already know that and you are wise, or you don’t realize it for many years and you are an idiot. Either way, your learning code is objectively shit." - L. Spiro

"This is called programming. The art of typing shit into an editor/IDE is not programming, it's basically data entry. The part that makes a programmer a programmer is their problem solving skills." - Serapth

"The 'friend' relationship in c++ is the tightest coupling you can give two objects. Friends can reach out and touch your privates." - frob

Madhed

4,095

August 01, 2014 08:57 PM

Memory leaks are a big problem with manual memory management.

So I propose this new syntax.


delete *;

BAM! No more worrying about leaks.

Anyone know how I can get in contact with the c++ standards committee?

SeanMiddleditch

17,596

August 01, 2014 09:17 PM

Anyone know how I can get in contact with the c++ standards committee?

https://isocpp.org/

I look forward to reading your proposal paper for this game-changing feature.

Sean Middleditch – Game Systems Engineer – Join my team!

Servant of the Lord

33,739

August 01, 2014 09:26 PM


delete Foo, Bar, Baz;

Oh wow, is that the result of the 'batch-delete' proposal from the new C++14 standard? I didn't know it made it in the final release!

There's so many great features that made it into the latest C++, I haven't looked through them all.

[Edit:] After hearing about the potential speed gains, I made a quick performance test, and found that ApochPiQ's version runs almost three times faster than the old method! It must allow some additional compiler optimizations (probably using SSE4's deallocation parallelization) under the hood, since it's batch-deleting them.

I've already gotten started converting my code base over, and so far the results are very promising. Unfortunately, the latest Boost builds don't yet use it - someone really needs patch the major opensource libraries to take advantage of the new speedgains.