Why doesn't new in C++ return NULL on failure

Question

Why doesn\'t new return NULL on failure? Why does it throw an exception only on failure?

As it returns a pointer to the object on successes

Answer 1

you can specify that you want new to return 0 instead of throwing std::bad_alloc using the std::nothrow parameter:

SomeType *p = new(std::nothrow) SomeType;