07. Heap Memory

Heap

The heap is a part (region) of a computer's memory that is free for use by a user and isn't managed by CPU or any onboard mechanism. It can be observed as a free-floating region of memory and is typically substantially larger in memory size than the stack.

Accessing the heap from C++ is done using typical memory management tools like pointers and the whole concept behind them. Heap memory is allocated , and because you don't have any backup tool which will clean and tidy your actions you are left with a responsibility of freeing used memory upon completion of your program. Plainly put, heap memory is memory that gets left over after the program loads and the stack memory gets allocated. Running out of heap memory can (and probably will) result in thrown error of type std:: bad_alloc. This can be encountered typically in a recursive functions and implementations.

// we are allocating char of value 'C' to the heap
char *ptr = new char('C');

// preventing memory leakage
// by freeing used memory
delete ptr;