Dynamic Memory
In this chapter, we have come across the term dynamic memory. Now let's understand in more detail what dynamic memory is, what problems it solves, and when to use it.
Dynamic memory is the part of the memory that the program can use to store objects, for which the program is responsible for maintaining the correct lifetime.
It is usually also called the heap and is often the alternative to the stack, which instead is handled automatically by the program. Dynamic memory can usually store much larger objects than the stack, which usually has a limit.
A program can interact with the operating system to get pieces of dynamic memory that it can use to store objects, and later it must take care to return such memory to the operating system.
Historically, developers would make sure they called the appropriate functions to get and return memory, but modern C++ automates most of this, so it is much easier to write correct programs nowadays.
In this section, we are going to show how and...
