Looking at this [cplusplus.com time example](http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/ctime/time/), got me thinking more about pointers. The code has no `delete` (and no `new`).

Warning: I generally try to avoid pointers as much as possible, so I am definitely not proficient.

I've cut a lot of the code from the example below so as to focus on my question:

```
/* time example */
#include <stdio.h>      /* printf */
#include <time.h>       /* time_t, struct tm, difftime, time, mktime */

int main ()
{
  time_t timer;
  time(&timer);  /* get current time; same as: timer = time(NULL)  */

  return 0;
}

```

Should I delete timer at the end of this, or is this just pointing to a system resource? My understanding is that whenever I use `new`, I should use `delete`. Is it right to think that as I am not using `new`, I don't need `delete`.

[This stack question](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13709284/do-i-need-to-delete-a-pointer-if-i-havent-assigned-it-a-new-value) seems to be what I am looking for and explains I don't need `delete` (which matches the example code on the website) as I am not doing a `new`; however, I am not sure the functions I am using are not calling a `new` somewhere (as I find it very hard to read the source). How do I know? Do I need to know?

I really hate working with this old time code and can't wait for the upcoming C++20 `chrono` update, but this is too far away for my project.