How to pass in constructor arguments with new
Note 1: Using the standard library (namely
std::vector
in this case) to handle things is prefereable!Note 2: Personally, I wouldn't go down the array of pointers route because you destroy your memory locality.
You can use std::allocator
:
// Create allocator object
std::allocator<Point> alloc;
// allocate storage for k Points
Point * p = alloc.allocate(k);
// Construct k Points in p
for (std::size_t i{0}; i<k; ++i)
{
alloc.construct(p+i, 5);
}
// Do stuff using p
// ...
// Destroy k objects in p
for (std::size_t i{0}; i<k; ++i)
{
alloc.destroy(p+i);
}
// Dealloacte memory
alloc.deallocate(p, k);
or you can handle it manually
// allocate
Point * p = static_cast<Point*>(::operator new[](k*sizeof(Point)));
// placement new construction
for (std::size_t i{0}; i<k; ++i)
{
new((void *)(p+i)) Point{5};
}
// stuff
// destruction
for (std::size_t i{0}; i<k; ++i)
{
(p+i)->~Point();
}
// deallocation
::operator delete[](static_cast<void*>(p));
where I'd wrap the memory handling into functions (if not a class) at least:
#include <new>
#include <utility>
#include <cstddef>
template<class T, class ... Args>
T * new_n(std::size_t const n, Args&& ... args)
{
T * p{ (T*)::operator new[](n*sizeof(T)) };
for (std::size_t i{ 0 }; i < n; ++i)
{
new((void*)(p + i)) T(std::forward<Args>(args)...);
}
return p;
}
template<class T>
void remove_n(T * const p, std::size_t const n)
{
for (std::size_t i{ 0 }; i < n; ++i) (p + i)->~T();
::operator delete[]((void*)p);
}
and use them
auto p = new_n<Point>(k, 5);
// stuff using k Points in p constructed by passing 5 to constructors
remove_n(p, k);
If you cannot use std::vector
, then an option is to dynamically allocate an array of pointers, then dynamically allocate n objects and assign the resulting memory to the pointers in the array. For example:
constexpr auto ARRAYSIZE = 5;
auto x = new PointPtr[ARRAYSIZE]; // should check for memory alloc errors
for (int i = 0; i < ARRAYSIZE; ++i)
{
x[i] = new Point(5); // pass any arguments you want, remember to check if allocation was successful
}
Note that such practices frowned upon because you should really never use new
unless you have a very good reason to do so (and IMO it's stupid that you're not allowed to do things the proper way and taught good practices from the start); instead use std::vector
and smart pointers, they should be able to satisfy all your dynamic memory needs.
I would suggest using a std::vector
:
std::vector<Point> v(k, Point{5});
But you can also do it as:
Point* centroids = new Point[5]{{1}, {2}, {3}, {4}, {5}};
Live Demo