Is *(new Object()) a bad practice?

[daverave1212]

In Java and other languages it is much easier to create a new object for a function, such as:

doSomething(new Object(1, 2, 3, 4));

In C++, the equivalent for a function that doesn't take a pointer as a parameter would be:

doSomething(*(new Object(1, 2, 3, 4)));

Is this a bad practice?

[Thomas1965]

In Java all the stuff created by new will be garbage collected.
In C++ you have to delete it yourself.
Much better practice is to use a smart pointer or pass it by value.

[ne555]

the equivalent would be doSomething(Object(1,2,3,4));

doSomething(*(new Object(1, 2, 3, 4))); is leaking memory

[Repeater]

As ne555 says, in C++ the equivalent is to NOT USE NEW.

I see this a lot in people coming from Java; they default to creating everything on the heap, using new. In C++, you should avoid it. Use it only when you HAVE to. Not just because you can.

[Ganado]

And, for the cases when you actually need to work with raw pointers (rare in C++11), you would pass the pointer without dereferencing it.

struct Node {
    Node() : data(0), next(nullptr) {}
    Node(int data) : data(data), next(nullptr) {}
    int data;
    Node* next;
};


struct DataStructure {

    DataStructure()
    {
        node = new Node;
        node->data = 0;
        node->next = nullptr;
    }

    ~DataStructure()
    {
        delete node;
        if (node->next)
        {
            delete node->next;
        }
    }

    void setNext(Node* node)
    {
        node->next = node;
    }

    Node* node;
};


int main()
{
    DataStructure ds;
    ds.setNext(new Node(42));
}

[daverave1212]

Thank you all for the answers!