Unable to delete [] char* in MSVC 6.0

[Ramiro Barbosa, Jr.]

All,

I was wondering why this causes a debug assertion failure in MSVC6.0/EE/SP5:

void main()
{
char* p = "HELLO";
delete [] p;
}

Any ideas?

Thank you!

-Ramiro

[Sharad Kala]

"Ramiro Barbosa, Jr." <ra******@yahoo.com> wrote in message

I was wondering why this causes a debug assertion failure in MSVC6.0/EE/SP5:
void main()
{
char* p = "HELLO";
delete [] p;

Because you only delete memory obtained through new.

Sharad

[Sharad Kala]

I was wondering why this causes a debug assertion failure in MSVC6.0/EE/SP5:
void main()
int main(), don't believe VC6 that accepts void main().
{
char* p = "HELLO";

Also note that the memory pointed by p is non-modifiable (AFAIK, many Unix
compilers place it in some read-only-memory location but this is
implementation dependent). Attempting to modify it is undefined behavior.
Also note that calls to new and new [] operators should be properly matched
by a corresponding call to delete and delete [] operators respectively.
Failing to do so is another cause of Undefined Behavior.

Sharad