Why private destructor in a Singleton class?

Question

I have seen that constructors, copy constructor, destructor and assignment operator is kept in private scope in a typical singletone class. e.g.

class CMySingleton
{
public:
  static CMySingleton& Instance()
  {
    static CMySingleton singleton;
    return singleton;
  }

private:
  CMySingleton() {}                                  // Private constructor
  ~CMySingleton() {}
  CMySingleton(const CMySingleton&);                 // Prevent copy-construction
  CMySingleton& operator=(const CMySingleton&);      // Prevent assignment
};

Now, my question is

why shoule we keep destructor and assignment operator in private scope? Is it mandatory?

Does a public destructor break any property of a singleton class? Because since our object construction is restricted so there is no chance of a unwanted destruction.

I can understand that private assignment operator can prevent a self assignment, but does a public assignment operator harm anyway other than extra run-time?

Wrong question. Correct question is: why this darn and stupid Singleton exists in the first place? — SergeyA

Chris Drew Chris Drew · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-05T13:35:19

Making the destructor private potentially prevents someone from trying to call delete on a pointer to the singleton.

auto& singleton = CMySingleton::Instance();
auto pointer_to_singleton = &singleton;
delete pointer_to_singleton;  // Bad!

Disabling the assignment operator prevents harmless but nonsensical self-assignment. See this answer. If someone is doing this, chances are, it was a mistake so you might as well prevent it.

Why private destructor in a Singleton class?

2 Answers