Initializing a pointer in c++

Question

I'm starting to learn C++ and about pointers. However I'm a little confused in their initialization. From what I understand, if I have some class X, the following code is valid:

X* pointer = new X();

This confuses me because I'd expect you'd want to initialize a pointer by giving it the address of an object, as opposed to the object itself, as in:

X* pointer = &(new X());

Does C++ automatically covert the former to the latter? Thanks.

Answer 1

Operator new returns the address of the created object. It does not return the object itself.

Also you could use a reference to the created object. For example

X &x = *( new X() );
//...

delete &x;