How can you manage garbage collection in C++?

2 How to manage garbage collection manually?

Managing garbage collection in C++ manually, using the operators new and delete , provides full control over memory allocation and deallocation. However, it can be a tedious and time-consuming task, particularly for complex programs that involve multiple layers of abstraction, inheritance, polymorphism, and dynamic allocation. Common mistakes that can lead to memory leaks or corruption include forgetting to delete a pointer or an object after use, deleting a pointer or an object more than once, deleting a pointer or an object that was not allocated with new , deleting a pointer to a base class without a virtual destructor, deleting a pointer to an array without using delete[] , using dangling pointers that point to freed memory, or using uninitialized or invalid pointers.

3 How to manage garbage collection with smart pointers?

In C++, another way to manage garbage collection is through smart pointers. These objects wrap around raw pointers and automatically free the memory they point to when they go out of scope or are reassigned. Smart pointers can simplify memory management and reduce the risk of memory leaks or corruption, but they also come with some drawbacks, such as overhead to memory operations, creating circular references that prevent memory from being freed, introducing compatibility issues with legacy code or libraries that use raw pointers, and changing the semantics and behavior of pointer operations. C++ provides several types of smart pointers with different characteristics and use cases. The most common ones are std::unique_ptr , which is useful for managing resources that have a single owner and a clear lifetime; std::shared_ptr , which is useful for managing resources that have multiple owners and a dynamic lifetime; and std::weak_ptr , which does not own the memory it points to and does not affect the reference count of a std::shared_ptr . It can be used to break circular references or to access resources that may or may not exist.

4 How to manage garbage collection with RAII?

RAII stands for Resource Acquisition Is Initialization, a programming idiom that binds the lifetime of a resource to the lifetime of an object. In C++, this means using constructors to acquire resources and destructors to release them, so that resources are automatically freed when the objects that own them are destroyed. RAII can be used to manage not only memory, but also other types of resources, such as files, sockets, locks, threads, etc. This programming technique can offer several advantages, such as ensuring that resources are always released even in the case of exceptions or early returns. It also avoids the need to write explicit cleanup code or use try-finally blocks, making the code more readable, concise and consistent while supporting the principle of single responsibility and separation of concerns. To implement RAII in C++, you can either use existing RAII classes like smart pointers, containers, streams and locks or create your own by defining a class that represents a resource and encapsulating its acquisition and release in the constructor and destructor respectively. Additionally, you should disable or appropriately implement the copy constructor and copy assignment operator while providing accessors and operators to manipulate the resource as needed.