why is a scalar deleting destructor being called as a result of vector delete on Windows?

Question

I have a code that is leaking on Windows. It runs fine on many unix platforms and the leak only occurs on Windows. The binary consists of exe, 1 dll and 2 static libs. The e

Answer 1

I think this is a clear case of allocating on one heap and deleting on another (remember that the delete[] has to query the heap for the number of elements in the array, and if the heap does not even contain this pointer, it will return "error" (not really) and it will be assumed that it is just one element and use the scalar delete instead). I think that the problem you have was lost in trying to boil it down to a simple example code. I would suggest you read this article (it's old, but the deletion technique is still very relevant, I use a variation of that technique myself and it works like a charm). One modern way to do this is to attach a deletion function pointer to a smart pointer (shared_ptr) that handles your object, this way, by assigning this deletion function pointer at the same time as you create the object in a factory function, you ensure that the delete will be called on the same heap that it was allocated from.