What is the purpose of a destructor in a class?

In a class, the purpose of a destructor is to release resources used by the object when it is no longer needed. Destructors are special member functions that are automatically invoked when an object goes out of scope or is explicitly deleted. This feature is crucial in managing memory and other resources—such as file handles or network connections—allocated during the lifetime of the object.

When an object is created, it may allocate memory or establish connections to other resources. If these resources are not released when the object is destroyed, it can lead to memory leaks or resource exhaustion, potentially destabilizing the system or application. The destructor serves as a cleanup mechanism, ensuring that any dynamically allocated memory is properly deallocated and resources are released appropriately.

For instance, if a class dynamically allocates an array in its constructor, the corresponding destructor will contain code to delete that array when the object is destroyed. This emphasizes the importance of resource management in C++ programming, where the developer has control over memory allocation and deallocation.

The other options do not align with the role of a destructor. Initializing an object is handled by a constructor, creating a copy of an object is managed by a copy constructor, and defining new types of operators involves operator overloading, which is separate