[Mingw-users] possible bug: fstreams and memory

[Laura M. <lm...@ya...>]

I connected a memory manager/bounds checker library to
a program I compiled under mingw to see if I was
overwriting memory anywhere.  The library said memory
was being deleted that had either already been deleted
or had never been allocated.  I finally tracked the
cause down to the iostream library.  If I add an
ifstream declaration such as:
ifstream fromfile;
to a test program, the memory checker reports memory
being deleted that is no longer allocated.  If I
remove the line, it doesn't happen.

Had a couple of questions.  Is this a bug in the
iostream library or is this okay behavior?  In the C++
standard, is it all right to call delete on a pointer
that has already been deleted or set to 0?

It's pretty hard to track down memory bugs when some
of the alert messages are coming from the iostream
library instead of the program code.  Any help in
figuring out whether this is a bug or appropriate
behavior based on the C++ standard would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks.

Laura Michaels
http://www.distasis.com/cpp/

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