Do I need to delete something that has been new'd inside a vector?

[ausairman]

Case in point:

vector<int*> myvec;
myvec.push_back(new int);

myvec.clear() // this will remove the dynamically allocated integer 

Does this work? I know the golden rule is to use delete whenever I use new, but in the vector documentation it says this for the vector::clear() function:

All the elements of the vector are dropped: their destructors are called, and then they are removed from the vector container, leaving the container with a size of 0.

Can someone please confirm or deny that this function would effectively call "delete" for every pointer in my vector?

[Cubbi]

No, this will not call delete.

The elements of your vector are pointers-to-int, which are non-class types. Calling a destructor on an object of non-class type compiles, but does nothing at all (it's known as "pseudo destructor call")

Best practice when holding pointers in a container is to use smart pointers (vector<unique_ptr<int>> or vector<shared_ptr<int>>, depending on your goals) or specialized pointer container (boost::ptr_vector<int>). In those cases you would never have to call delete.

[ausairman]

ok, thanks :)