Overhead to using std::vector?

Question

I know that manual dynamic memory allocation is a bad idea in general, but is it sometimes a better solution than using, say, std::vector?

To give a crude e

Answer 1

I can't think of any case where dynamically allocating a C style vector makes sense. (I've been working in C++ for over 25 years, and I've yet to use new[].) Usually, if I know the size up front, I'll use something like:

std::vector data( n );

to get an already sized vector, rather than using push_back.

Of course, if n is very small and is known at compile time, I'll use std::array (if I have access to C++11), or even a C style array, and just create the object on the stack, with no dynamic allocation. (Such cases seem to be rare in the code I work on; small fixed size arrays tend to be members of classes. Where I do occasionally use a C style array.)