RE: [Dev-C++] Deliberate crashes

[Ioannis V. <no...@ho...>]

-----Original Message-----
From: dev...@li...
[mailto:dev...@li...] On Behalf Of Bob
Wilson
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 6:02 PM
To: fee...@sa...; Dev-C++ User Mailing List
Subject: [Dev-C++] Deliberate crashes



I have several questions.
 
How could someone who is expert enough to write a beginning book on C++
make such an error  
 

Deleting the contents of an invalid memory address (that is a memory
address where there is no space allocated by new) invokes undefined
behavior. Undefined behavior can be the program crashes, the OS crashes,
the airplane falls, the robotic arm destroyes the machine. In your case
the program does not crash but some other damage occurs (some contents
of another thing are altered (e.g. of a function) or it can be that
delete knows that it has erased the contents of that memory and doesn't
clear them again. In any case it just *happened* to not crash your
program immediately.

  

1.	Is it perhaps because the ANSI/ISO definition of the language
and what a compiler should do has changed?  

No. 

1.	Have GNU and the Gates crowd made similar unilateral changes to
solve a pesky problem?  

It can be that some particular compiler take care of that but you can't
rely on this.

1.	Did I misread something which seems fairly straight forward? 

2.	Are there other pointer inconsistances hiding in the weeds
waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting? 

Yes the problem may appear later.
 
 

Ioannis

* Ioannis Vranos
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