MALLOC(3) Library Functions Manual MALLOC(3)

NAME

malloc — a memory allocator

SYNOPSIS

#include <stdlib.h>

void *malloc(size_t size);

DESCRIPTION

[CX] The functionality described on this reference page is aligned with the ISO C standard. Any conflict between the requirements described here and the ISO C standard is unintentional. This volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”) defers to the ISO C standard.

The malloc () function shall allocate unused space for an object whose size in bytes is specified by size and whose value is unspecified.

The order and contiguity of storage allocated by successive calls to malloc () is unspecified. The pointer returned if the allocation succeeds shall be suitably aligned so that it may be assigned to a pointer to any type of object and then used to access such an object in the space allocated (until the space is explicitly freed or reallocated). Each such allocation shall yield a pointer to an object disjoint from any other object. The pointer returned points to the start (lowest byte address) of the allocated space. If the space cannot be allocated, a null pointer shall be returned. If the size of the space requested is 0, the behavior is implementation-defined: the value returned shall be either a null pointer or a unique pointer.

RETURN VALUE

Upon successful completion with size not equal to 0, malloc () shall return a pointer to the allocated space. If size is 0, either a null pointer or a unique pointer that can be successfully passed to free(3) shall be returned. Otherwise, it shall return a null pointer [CX] and set errno to indicate the error.