Dynamic memory (new && delete)

[L0DER]

A few days ago i read about dynamic memory, and I didn't understand much could someone give me a hand?
I didn't understand what are they, what they good for.

[BhaaL]

In case you know some C, they are equivalent to malloc and free.
new is used to allocate memory, delete is used to free it again.

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char sbuffer[20]; //static allocation
char *dbuffer = new char[20]; //dynamic allocation
delete dbuffer; //dont forget to free it; else it leaks memory

Why is this important/useful?
Ever tried this?

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int size = 20;
cin >> size;
char sbuffer[size]; //error, size is not known at compile time
char *dbuffer = new char[size]; //allocated as runtime, where size is known

There are other uses and reasons for dynamic allocation, but you should be able to get somewhere with that knowledge.

[L0DER]

well, i didn't understand it , but i tried the code and it compiled without errors.(but didn't worked properly )
what does it help you if you allocated the memory dynamically
why couldn't you be pleased just with:

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define MAX_SIZE 20
// or
int max_size = 20;
/////////////////
char chArray[MAX_SIZE/* OR */ max_size];

[BhaaL]

The define way is static allocation, and only helps you organize your constants. Imagine you'd need 40 now instead of 20, you just change MAX_SIZE to 40, rather than looking through your code where you use the number 20.

The second way however does *not* work, because max_size is not constant.

The main idea behind dynamic allocation is optimized memory usage. Having char buffer[200] uses 200 Bytes, no matter if you need them or not. char *buffer uses 4 Bytes, and you can allocate as much as you need - when you need it.
There are still systems out there that have few to no memory, and you have to use it wisely (I just recently talked to a guy that wanted to run a game of his on a calculator with 118 KB Memory - asking a similar thing about malloc/free).

Dynamic allocation makes more sense with Data structures tho. Grab a struct that holds a pointer to its next element, allocate them with malloc when you need them.
Create vectors of objects, in-time when required - no limitation to size on compile time. Need one more, just add another.
Doesnt work with static sized arrays.

[L0DER]

Thanks you. Now I understand.