While listening to Frank Adam Pete heard:free()

G'day Frank

 FA> Could someone tell or show me how to free dynamically allocated
 FA> memory in one function from another function or main ?

 FA> eg:
 FA> main()
 FA> {
 FA> foo();
 FA> }
 FA> 
 FA> char* foo()
 FA> {
 FA> char *s = malloc(80);
 FA> }

char * foo(void);

int main(void) {

char *mymem;

  mymem = foo();
  free(mymem);

  return 0;

}

char * foo(void) {

  char *s = (char*) malloc(80);

  /* do stuff to allocated mem here */

  return s;
}



 FA> If this function is to return s, freeing it before return would
 FA> not be a good idea, is that true ?

should work just fine just don't forget to add the 'return' to the end
of your foo function.

 FA> If it is, how would i then get access to s to free it ? It's out
 FA> of scope, as silly as is i've tried free(s) from main, compiler
 FA> says "what s?" of course.

have a pointer ready to accept the return pointer value.

 FA> Btw, i have thought about freeing it before returning, and it
 FA> *seems* to  work fine in DOS, but i don't know how safe that is.

Unless there's a reason to return a pointer to the allocated mem then
free it before you return from the function.

 FA> I also believe that in a multitask environment, that would be
 FA> fatal if another program got a slice between free() and return,
 FA> am i thinking straight here or not ?

not sure if i understand what you mean here?.

   -=Pete=-


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