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NAME
malloc, free, calloc, realloc - allocate and free dynamic memory
SYNOPSIS
#include <stdlib.h>
void *malloc(size_t size);
void free(void *ptr);
void *calloc(size_t nmemb, size_t size);
void *realloc(void *ptr, size_t size);
DESCRIPTION
The malloc() function allocates size bytes and returns a pointer to the allocated memory. The memory is
not initialized. If size is 0, then malloc() returns either NULL, or a unique pointer value that can
later be successfully passed to free().
The free() function frees the memory space pointed to by ptr, which must have been returned by a previous
call to malloc(), calloc(), or realloc(). Otherwise, or if free(ptr) has already been called before,
undefined behavior occurs. If ptr is NULL, no operation is performed.
The calloc() function allocates memory for an array of nmemb elements of size bytes each and returns a
pointer to the allocated memory. The memory is set to zero. If nmemb or size is 0, then calloc()
returns either NULL, or a unique pointer value that can later be successfully passed to free().
The realloc() function changes the size of the memory block pointed to by ptr to size bytes. The
contents will be unchanged in the range from the start of the region up to the minimum of the old and new
sizes. If the new size is larger than the old size, the added memory will not be initialized. If ptr is
NULL, then the call is equivalent to malloc(size), for all values of size; if size is equal to zero, and
ptr is not NULL, then the call is equivalent to free(ptr). Unless ptr is NULL, it must have been
returned by an earlier call to malloc(), calloc() or realloc(). If the area pointed to was moved, a
free(ptr) is done.
RETURN VALUE
The malloc() and calloc() functions return a pointer to the allocated memory, which is suitably aligned
for any built-in type. On error, these functions return NULL. NULL may also be returned by a successful
call to malloc() with a size of zero, or by a successful call to calloc() with nmemb or size equal to
zero.
The free() function returns no value.
The realloc() function returns a pointer to the newly allocated memory, which is suitably aligned for any
built-in type and may be different from ptr, or NULL if the request fails. If size was equal to 0,
either NULL or a pointer suitable to be passed to free() is returned. If realloc() fails, the original
block is left untouched; it is not freed or moved.
ERRORS
calloc(), malloc(), and realloc() can fail with the following error:
ENOMEM Out of memory. Possibly, the application hit the RLIMIT_AS or RLIMIT_DATA limit described in
getrlimit(2).
ATTRIBUTES
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
┌─────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐
│Interface │ Attribute │ Value │
├─────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
│malloc(), free(), │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
│calloc(), realloc() │ │ │
└─────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘
CONFORMING TO
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, C89, C99.
NOTES
By default, Linux follows an optimistic memory allocation strategy. This means that when malloc()
returns non-NULL there is no guarantee that the memory really is available. In case it turns out that
the system is out of memory, one or more processes will be killed by the OOM killer. For more
information, see the description of /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory and /proc/sys/vm/oom_adj in proc(5),
and the Linux kernel source file Documentation/vm/overcommit-accounting.
Normally, malloc() allocates memory from the heap, and adjusts the size of the heap as required, using
sbrk(2). When allocating blocks of memory larger than MMAP_THRESHOLD bytes, the glibc malloc()
implementation allocates the memory as a private anonymous mapping using mmap(2). MMAP_THRESHOLD is 128
kB by default, but is adjustable using mallopt(3). Allocations performed using mmap(2) are unaffected by
the RLIMIT_DATA resource limit (see getrlimit(2)).
To avoid corruption in multithreaded applications, mutexes are used internally to protect the memory-
management data structures employed by these functions. In a multithreaded application in which threads
simultaneously allocate and free memory, there could be contention for these mutexes. To scalably handle
memory allocation in multithreaded applications, glibc creates additional memory allocation arenas if
mutex contention is detected. Each arena is a large region of memory that is internally allocated by the
system (using brk(2) or mmap(2)), and managed with its own mutexes.
SUSv2 requires malloc(), calloc(), and realloc() to set errno to ENOMEM upon failure. Glibc assumes that
this is done (and the glibc versions of these routines do this); if you use a private malloc
implementation that does not set errno, then certain library routines may fail without having a reason in
errno.
Crashes in malloc(), calloc(), realloc(), or free() are almost always related to heap corruption, such as
overflowing an allocated chunk or freeing the same pointer twice.
The malloc() implementation is tunable via environment variables; see mallopt(3) for details.
SEE ALSO
brk(2), mmap(2), alloca(3), malloc_get_state(3), malloc_info(3), malloc_trim(3), malloc_usable_size(3),
mallopt(3), mcheck(3), mtrace(3), posix_memalign(3)
COLOPHON
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http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.