C Dynamic Memory Allocation

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C Dynamic Memory Allocation

malloc, calloc, or realloc are the three functions used to manipulate memory. These commonly used functions are available through the stdlib library so you must include this library in order to use them.

C – Dynamic memory allocation functions

Function	Syntax
malloc()	malloc (number *sizeof(int));
calloc()	calloc (number, sizeof(int));
realloc()	realloc (pointer_name, number * sizeof(int));
free()	free (pointer_name);

malloc function

• malloc function is used to allocate space in memory during the execution of the program.
• malloc function does not initialize the memory allocated during execution.  It carries garbage value.
• malloc function returns null pointer if it couldn’t able to allocate requested amount of memory.

Example program for malloc() in C

Example:

#include<stdio.h>
#include<string.h>
#include<stdlib.h>

int main()
{    
 char *mem_alloc;
 /* memory allocated dynamically */
 mem_alloc = malloc( 15 * sizeof(char) );

 if(mem_alloc== NULL )
 {      
  printf("Couldn't able to allocate requested memory\n");
 }
 else
 {      
  strcpy( mem_alloc,"w3schools.in");
 }

 printf("Dynamically allocated memory content : %s\n", mem_alloc );
 free(mem_alloc);
}

Program Output:

Dynamically allocated memory content : w3schools.in

calloc function

• calloc () function and malloc () function is similar. But calloc () allocates memory for zero-initializes. However, malloc () does not.

Example program for calloc() in C

Example:

#include<stdio.h>
#include<string.h>
#include<stdlib.h>

int main()
{    
 char *mem_alloc;
 /* memory allocated dynamically */
 mem_alloc = calloc( 15, sizeof(char) );

 if( mem_alloc== NULL )
 {      
  printf("Couldn't able to allocate requested memory\n");
 }
 else
 {      
  strcpy( mem_alloc,"w3schools.in");
 }

 printf("Dynamically allocated memory content : %s\n", mem_alloc );
 free(mem_alloc);
}

Program Output:

Dynamically allocated memory content : w3schools.in

realloc function

• realloc function modifies the allocated memory size by malloc and calloc functions to new size.
• If enough space doesn’t exist in memory of current block to extend, new block is allocated for the full size of reallocation, then copies the existing data to new block and then frees the old block.

free function

• free function frees the allocated memory by malloc (), calloc (), realloc () functions.

Example program for realloc() and free()

Example:

#include<stdio.h>
#include<string.h>
#include<stdlib.h>   

int main()
{
 char *mem_alloc;
 /* memory allocated dynamically */
 mem_alloc = malloc( 20 * sizeof(char) );

 if( mem_alloc == NULL )
 {      
  printf("Couldn't able to allocate requested memory\n");
 }
 else
 {      
  strcpy( mem_alloc,"w3schools.in");
 }

 printf("Dynamically allocated memory content  : " \ "%s\n", mem_alloc );
 mem_alloc=realloc(mem_alloc,100*sizeof(char));

 if( mem_alloc == NULL )
 {      
  printf("Couldn't able to allocate requested memory\n");
 }
 else
 {      
  strcpy( mem_alloc,"space is extended upto 100 characters");
 }

 printf("Resized memory : %s\n", mem_alloc );
 free(mem_alloc);   
}

Program Output:

Dynamically allocated memory content : w3schools.in

Resized memory : space is extended upto 100 characters