Why must a pointer to a char array need strcpy to assign characters to its array and double quotes assignment will not work?

Question

The first example does not work when you go to delete the pointer. The program either hangs when I add the null terminator or without it I get:

Debug Assertion Fai

Answer 1

In the first example, you have caused a memory leak.

Your variable at is a pointer to a memory address, not the string itself. When you assign the address of "tw" to the pointer, you have lost the original address that you got with new. at now points to an address that you did not allocate with new, so you cannot delete it.

If you think of pointers as integers, it will probably make more sense. I've assigned arbitrary numbers as addresses for the sake of discussion.

char *at = new char[3];    // 0x1000
at = "tw";                 // 0x2000
at[2] = '\0';              // set char at 0x2002 to 0
delete at;                 // delete 0x2000 (whoops, didn't allocate that!)