Should I put a try-finally block after every Object.Create?

Question

I have a general question about best practice in OO Delphi. Currently, I put try-finally blocks anywhere I create an object to free that object after usage (to avoid memory leak

Answer 1

Even if it is much recommended to do that, I won't always do it.

My rules of using or not using the try/finally:

• The chance for that object to crash and burn.
• Number of times the object is created. If I know that your object is created rarely (not more than 5-6 time in application life time) I can live with a 20KB memory leak - in case it 'dies' without being freed.
• Amount of leaked memory in case the object crashes.
• Code complexity. Try/except is making the code to look really ugly. If there is a 5 lines procedure, I always use try/except.
• Application file span. If your application needs to run for days, then I definitively want to free ANY piece of memory else the leak will accumulate.

The only place where is difficult to make a decision is when you need performance while creating the object thousands of times (in a loop for example). In this case, I don't use try/except if the object is performing simple tasks and there is a small chance to see it crashing.