The Heap

In C, you learn to love malloc and free for putting things on the heap:

struct MyThing{};


int main() {
    MyThing * c = malloc(sizeof(MyThing));
    free(c); // Thing won't be removed from the heap if you forget!

    return 0;
}

In Older C++, you have new and delete:

struct MyThing{};


int main() {
    auto c = new MyThing{};
    delete c; // Thing won't be removed from the heap if you forget!

    return 0;
}

In Modern C++, you can use a smart pointer:

#include <memory>

struct MyThing {};

int main() {
    auto c = std::make_unique<MyThing>();
} // c will self-delete when it goes out of scope

You can use alloc() (and even malloc() if you want to) with unsafe Rust, but most of the time you'll use the built-in smart pointers:

struct MyThing {};

fn main() {
    let c = Box::new(MyThing{});
}