What is the new operator?

The keyword new is used to dynamically allocate memory in C++. There are two forms for new. One allocates space for a single object in memory and initializes that object to a specified value. The second allocates a block of memory large enough to store a specified number of objects.

‘New’ returns the address of the start of the allocated memory. This is typically stored in a pointer. When an object is created with the new operator, its constructor is called implicitly. Any object created with new operator must be destroyed using the ‘delete’ operator.

Some examples of the new operator:

class foo { /* ... */ };
void
f ()
{
  foo *foop = new foo;
  char * str = new char[20];
  int * p = new int (7);
  // ...
  delete p;
  delete[] str;
  delete foo;
}

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