Is there any point to temporarily making a pointer NULL?

Question

I've seen lots of code like this: ``` SomeType* ptr = NULL; ptr = SomeMethod(some, params); ``` What's the point? I've also seen it where `ptr` is declared somewhere else (for example in a class definition) and then in the class constructor there'd be this: ``` ptr = NULL; ptr = SomeMethod(some, params); ``` I don't understand why this is done. Surely the `ptr = NULL` line is useless?

Accepted Answer

if "SomeMethod" throws an exception your SomeType* will keep pointing to something you don't want it to point to. Hence it is definitely a good practice to set pointer to null if you don't want it to point to the old thing anymore.

Is there any point to temporarily making a pointer NULL?

Solution

Problem