How to free memory in try-catch blocks?

Question

I have a simple question hopefully - how does one free memory which was allocated in the try block when the exception occurs? Consider the following code:

try
 {         


        

Answer 1

The general answer is use RAII.

However, its possible to solve it by moving the variable out of the try{} scope:

char * heap = NULL;
try {
  heap = new char [50];
  ... stuff ...
} catch (...) {
  if (heap) {
    delete[] heap;
    heap = NULL;
  }
  ... however you want to handle the exception: rethrow, return, etc ...
}

Please note that I'm not recommending this as a good practice - but more of a down & dirty to be used only if you really know the risks and are still willing to take them. Personally, I'd use RAII.

Peace