Must free TRegEx object after TRegEx.Create?

Question

I have seen several Delphi examples of TRegEx usage like the following one in Delphi 10.1.2:

try
  RegexObj := TRegEx.Create(REGEX_EXTRACTEMAILADDRESSES, [roIgnoreCase]); 
  MatchResults := RegexObj.Match(ThisPageText);
  while MatchResults.Success do
  begin
    slEmailAddressesOnThisPage.Add(MatchResults.Value);
    MatchResults := MatchResults.NextMatch();
  end;
except
  on E: ERegularExpressionError do
  begin
    // Todo: Log Syntax error in the regular expression
  end;
end;

So I wonder whether the TRegEx object must be explicitly freed after creation in such an example?

Answer 1

Only class objects that derive from TObject must be explicitly freed from memory after being created. TRegEx is a record instead, so it is released when it goes out of scope. TRegEx.Create is a constructor, but not one that creates a new object on the heap, just on the call stack, so there is nothing to free manually (there is no destructor defined for it).