PROLOG

       This  manual  page  is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux implementation of
       this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux  manual  page  for  details  of
       Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME

       malloc — a memory allocator

SYNOPSIS

       #include <stdlib.h>

       void *malloc(size_t size);

DESCRIPTION

       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 POSIX.1‐2008 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() shall be returned. Otherwise, it shall return a null pointer
       and set errno to indicate the error.

ERRORS

       The malloc() function shall fail if:

       ENOMEM Insufficient storage space is available.

       The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES

       None.

APPLICATION USAGE

       None.

RATIONALE

       None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       calloc(), free(), getrlimit(), posix_memalign(), realloc()

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, <stdlib.h>

COPYRIGHT

       Portions  of  this  text  are  reprinted  and  reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std
       1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology  --  Portable  Operating  System
       Interface  (POSIX),  The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the
       Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc  and  The  Open  Group.   (This  is
       POSIX.1-2008  with  the  2013  Technical  Corrigendum  1  applied.)  In  the  event of any
       discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open  Group  Standard,  the
       original  IEEE  and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard
       can be obtained online at http://www.unix.org/online.html .

       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most  likely  to  have
       been  introduced  during  the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report
       such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .