This question is off-topic, technical and long. Still, some developers follow this list and might be able to enlighten me. I'm teaching data structures for the first time in years. So many years that the last time I taught it was in Pascal! We're using C++ and this has caused me to look more closely at how dynamic memory is handled. We're doing linked lists right now, so I wrote some code to use in my lectures. Making an effort to do things right, I define a "List" class and associated "Node" and "Iterator" classes. Once I got the usual insert, delete, etc. methods working, I added a copy constructor and a destructor. A silly bug in my copy constructor forced me to look at what happens at run time. What I've observed is: In a program containing a List or two, *if* I define a destructor, the destructor is called (automatically) at the program's exit to free (I guess) any dynamic memory that was used. I've noticed this both with the Gnu compiler and M$ Vistual C++. Clearly, if I don't include a destructor, I may have a memory leak. My question is: If I leave out the destructor and have a memory leak, does the waste of memory persist after my program has exited? -- Kenneth R. Kellum, San Jose State University I solemnly swear that I will never write code that depends on the difference between n++ and ++n. -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/