Chapter 6. Memory and Resource Management

C++ offers tremendous flexibility in managing memory, but few C++ programmers fully understand the available mechanisms. In this area of the language, overloading, name hiding, constructors and destructors, exceptions, static and virtual functions, operator and non-operator functions all come together to provide great flexibility and customizability of memory management. Unfortunately, and perhaps unavoidably, things can also get a bit complex.

In this chapter, we'll look at how the various features of C++ are used together in memory management, how they sometimes interact in surprising ways, and how to simplify their interactions.

Inasmuch as memory is just one of many resources a program manages, we'll also look at how to bind other resources to memory so we can use C++'s sophisticated memory management facilities to manage other resources as well.