Nulling pointers defined within function

Question

In the codebase I inherited, I notice that the previous coder would null pointers init'ed within the function before the function closes.

Something like:

void MainClass::run() {

MyClass* _classPtr = GetClassPtr(); // Assume no problems here.

// do stuff to _classPtr

_classPtr = nullptr; // Is this even necessary?

return;
}

I find it unnecessary since the pointer's memory (Not the object itself, just the pointer) should be freed up at function close. Is that true?

Answer 1

It's not necessary to do this. When the function goes out of scope the the memory used by the pointer will be release regardless of what it's set to. However, the object pointed to will not be released.

This is probably just a coding standard adopted by the previous developer.