There is a common myth among C++ programmers that it is okay to use
delete instead of
delete [] to release dynamically allocated arrays (via
new) for built-in types. For
example,
int *p=new int[10];
delete p;
This is totally wrong. The C++ standard specifically says that using
delete to release dynamically allocated arrays of any type yields undefined behavior. The fact that, on some platforms, applications that use
delete instead of
delete [] do not crash; can be attributed to sheer luck.
Visual C++, for instance, implements both
delete[] and
delete for built-in types by calling
free() function. However, there is no guarantee that future releases of Visual C++ will adhere to this convention. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that this code will work on other compilers.
To conclude, using delete instead of delete[] and vice versa is hazardous and should be avoided.
