Table of Contents
Why do you need RAII?
Application of RAII in actual development
Write a simple RAII example
What to note about RAII programming
Home Backend Development C++ Explain RAII in C

Explain RAII in C

Jul 22, 2025 am 03:27 AM
c++ raii

RAII is an important technology used in resource management in C. Its core lies in automatically managing resources through the object life cycle. Its core idea is: resources are acquired at construction time and released at destruction, thereby avoiding leakage problems caused by manual release. For example, when there is no RAII, the file operation requires manually calling fclose. If there is an error in the middle or return in advance, you may forget to close the file; and after using RAII, such as the FileHandle class encapsulates the file operation, the destructor will be automatically called after leaving the scope to release the resource. 1. RAII is applied to lock management (such as std::lock_guard), 2. Memory management (such as std::unique_ptr), 3. Database and network connection management and other scenarios. Notes when writing RAII classes: 1. Do not release resources manually, 2. Disable copying or implement deep copying to prevent repeated releases, 3. The constructor needs to handle the failure of resource application to ensure exception security. Mastering RAII can effectively improve code robustness.

Explain RAII in C

RAII (Resource Acquisition Is Initialization) is a very important programming technology in C. The core idea is to use the life cycle of objects to manage the acquisition and release of resources . Simply put: resources are obtained during object construction and released during object destruction .

Explain RAII in C

This mechanism can effectively avoid resource leakage (such as memory, file handles, locks, etc.), because it does not rely on programmers to manually release resources, but depends on the compiler to automatically call the destructor.


Why do you need RAII?

In the absence of RAII, resource management usually depends on manual control, such as:

Explain RAII in C
 FILE* file = fopen("data.txt", "r");
// Use the file fclose(file); // Remember to close

But the problem of writing this way is obvious: if something goes wrong in the middle or returns in advance, it is easy to forget fclose , causing resource leakage.

After using RAII, we can encapsulate resources into classes and let the life cycle of the object automatically manage it:

Explain RAII in C
 {
    FileHandle file("data.txt"); // Open during construction // Use file} // Automatically close after leaving scope

As long as the object leaves the scope, the destructor will be called and the resource will be released naturally.


Application of RAII in actual development

RAII is not only used for file operations, but is also widely used in the following scenarios:

  • Lock Guard
    For example, std::lock_guard or std::unique_lock , they are locked during construction and unlocked during destruction to ensure multi-thread safety.

  • Memory management (smart pointer)
    For example std::unique_ptr and std::shared_ptr , RAII is used to automatically release heap memory.

  • Database connection, network connection management
    You can customize the class to encapsulate the connection logic and automatically disconnect during destruction.

These practices all follow the same principle: the life cycle of a resource is controlled by the object .


Write a simple RAII example

Suppose we want to encapsulate a simple file class:

 class FileHandle {
public:
    explicit FileHandle(const char* filename) {
        file = fopen(filename, "r");
        if (!file) throw std::runtime_error("Failed to open file");
    }

    ~FileHandle() {
        if (file) fclose(file);
    }

    // Disable copying, avoid multiple objects trying to close the same file FileHandle(const FileHandle&) = delete;
    FileHandle& operator=(const FileHandle&) = delete;

private:
    FILE* file;
};

This way we can use this class safely without worrying about forgetting to close the file.


What to note about RAII programming

  • Don't release resources manually
    The meaning of RAII is that you no longer need to call the release function manually, otherwise you will lose the advantage of automatic management.

  • Copying is prohibited or deep copying is realized
    If copying is allowed, both objects may repeatedly release resources during destruction, resulting in undefined behavior.

  • Exceptional safety is important
    When applying for resources in the constructor, it is best to handle failures (such as throwing exceptions) to avoid leaving half-initialized objects.


In general, RAII is a very natural and powerful resource management method in C. Although the principle is simple, understanding and using it well is very important for writing robust code. Basically that's it.

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