How to check when a pointer is deleted?

Question

When I debugging someone else's code, how could I found when a pointer is deleted?

Answer 1

1)

Use a debugger. follow one delete. In general you end up in some "free" function passing a pointer

Set a breakpoint with the condition that the past pointer has the same value as your investigated pointer

2)

One similar approach is to override the "delete" method and to check for that pointer in question.

3)

If the pointer refers to an object with an destructor. Place a breakpoint on the destructor. May be you may want to add a destructor first (if possible at all by foreign code, always possible on own code)

Answer 2

Set a conditional breakpoint on the destructor of the type in question. Let the condition be that this points to the object you're interested in. E.g., in Visual C++ Express 2010:

For the above figure I first executed to after the three new expressions, then noted the address of the b object, and then used as breakpoint condition that this should be that address.

The details of how to do this with other debuggers depends on the debugger. See the debugger's manual.