Operator new initializes memory to zero

Question

There is such code:

#include <iostream>  int main(){   unsigned int* wsk2 = new unsigned int(5);   std::cout << "wsk2: " << wsk2 << " " << *wsk2 << std::endl;   delete wsk2;   wsk2 = new unsigned int;   std::cout << "wsk2: " << wsk2 << " " << *wsk2 << std::endl;   return 0; } 

Result:

wsk2: 0x928e008 5 wsk2: 0x928e008 0 

I have read that new doesn't initialize memory with zeroes. But here it seems that it does. How does it work?

Answer 1

There are two versions:

wsk = new unsigned int;      // default initialized (ie nothing happens) wsk = new unsigned int();    // zero    initialized (ie set to 0) 

Also works for arrays:

wsa = new unsigned int[5];   // default initialized (ie nothing happens) wsa = new unsigned int[5](); // zero    initialized (ie all elements set to 0) 

In answer to comment below.

Ehm... are you sure that new unsigned int[5]() zeroes the integers?

Apparently yes:

[C++11: 5.3.4/15]: A new-expression that creates an object of type T initializes that object as follows: If the new-initializer is omitted, the object is default-initialized (8.5); if no initialization is performed, the object has indeterminate value. Otherwise, the new-initializer is interpreted according to the initialization rules of 8.5 for direct-initialization.

#include <new> #include <iostream>   int main() {     unsigned int   wsa[5] = {1,2,3,4,5};      // Use placement new (to use a know piece of memory).     // In the way described above.     //      unsigned int*    wsp = new (wsa) unsigned int[5]();      std::cout << wsa[0] << "\n";   // If these are zero then it worked as described.     std::cout << wsa[1] << "\n";   // If they contain the numbers 1 - 5 then it failed.     std::cout << wsa[2] << "\n";     std::cout << wsa[3] << "\n";     std::cout << wsa[4] << "\n"; } 

Results:

> g++ --version Configured with: --prefix=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1 Apple LLVM version 5.1 (clang-503.0.40) (based on LLVM 3.4svn) Target: x86_64-apple-darwin13.2.0 Thread model: posix > g++ t.cpp > ./a.out 0 0 0 0 0 > 

Answer 2

operator new is not guaranteed to initialize memory to anything, and the new-expression that allocates an unsigned int without a new-initializer leaves the object with an indeterminate value.

Reading the value of an uninitialized object results in undefined behavior. Undefined behavior includes evaluating to the value zero with no ill effects but could result in anything happening so you should avoid causing it.

In C++11, the language used is that the allocated objects are default-initialized which for non-class types means that no initialization is performed. This is different from the meaning of default-initialized in C++03.