Deletion of pointer to incomplete type 'Point'; no destructor called

Question

I have 2 files:

Point.h:

class Point {
    int x;
    int y;
    char* name;
   public:
     Point() { name = new char[5]; }
    ~Point() { delete[] name; }
};

and: Line.h:

class Point;
class Line {
    Point* p;
  public:
    Line() {
      p = new Point[2];
      ....
      ...
    }
    ~Line() {
       delete[] p;
    }
};

but when I compile, I got the next error:

deletion of pointer to incomplete type 'Point'; no destructor called

any help appreciated!

Answer 1

You need to add #include "Point.h" into your file Line.h. You can only construct and delete complete types.

Alterntively, remove the member function definitions from Line.h, and put them in a separate file Line.cpp, and include Point.h and Line.h in that file. This is a typical dependency reduction technique which makes code faster to compile, although at a potential loss of certain inlining opportunities.

Answer 2

You have forward declared Point, which is fine for declaring a pointer or reference, but not fine for anything else in which the compiler would need to know the definition of the forward declared class.

If you need the forward declaration in the header file (do you? If not, just #include "Point.h" in Line.h ) then implement your Line functions in an implementation file which #includes Point.h.