Pointers - declaring new?

[jazpearson]

I was just wondering something.......

Whne you declare a new pointer, eg:

someClass *p;

when do you need to call new? and when is it ok not to?

For example, you might have:

someClass *p = new SomeClass(x,y,z);

however, i often see in code things like:

someClass *p = SomeMethod(a,b,c);

whereby new hasn't been called. So when is new needed, and when not?

Thanks

[Breadman]

New is called when you want a new object of the class. SomeMethod(a, b, c); probably returns a pointer to someClass.

int *p = new int(435);
int number = 534;
int *pointer = &number;

there's a simple example. a pointer can point to a value that already exists or you can allocate a new value with new.