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(libc.info)Memory Allocation and C

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Memory Allocation in C Programs
-------------------------------

   The C language supports two kinds of memory allocation through the
variables in C programs:

   * "Static allocation" is what happens when you declare a static or
     global variable.  Each static or global variable defines one block
     of space, of a fixed size.  The space is allocated once, when your
     program is started (part of the exec operation), and is never
     freed.

   * "Automatic allocation" happens when you declare an automatic
     variable, such as a function argument or a local variable.  The
     space for an automatic variable is allocated when the compound
     statement containing the declaration is entered, and is freed when
     that compound statement is exited.

     In GNU C, the size of the automatic storage can be an expression
     that varies.  In other C implementations, it must be a constant.

   A third important kind of memory allocation, "dynamic allocation",
is not supported by C variables but is available via GNU C library
functions.

Dynamic Memory Allocation
.........................

   "Dynamic memory allocation" is a technique in which programs
determine as they are running where to store some information.  You need
dynamic allocation when the amount of memory you need, or how long you
continue to need it, depends on factors that are not known before the
program runs.

   For example, you may need a block to store a line read from an input
file; since there is no limit to how long a line can be, you must
allocate the memory dynamically and make it dynamically larger as you
read more of the line.

   Or, you may need a block for each record or each definition in the
input data; since you can't know in advance how many there will be, you
must allocate a new block for each record or definition as you read it.

   When you use dynamic allocation, the allocation of a block of memory
is an action that the program requests explicitly.  You call a function
or macro when you want to allocate space, and specify the size with an
argument.  If you want to free the space, you do so by calling another
function or macro.  You can do these things whenever you want, as often
as you want.

   Dynamic allocation is not supported by C variables; there is no
storage class "dynamic", and there can never be a C variable whose
value is stored in dynamically allocated space.  The only way to get
dynamically allocated memory is via a system call (which is generally
via a GNU C library function call), and the only way to refer to
dynamically allocated space is through a pointer.  Because it is less
convenient, and because the actual process of dynamic allocation
requires more computation time, programmers generally use dynamic
allocation only when neither static nor automatic allocation will serve.

   For example, if you want to allocate dynamically some space to hold a
`struct foobar', you cannot declare a variable of type `struct foobar'
whose contents are the dynamically allocated space.  But you can
declare a variable of pointer type `struct foobar *' and assign it the
address of the space.  Then you can use the operators `*' and `->' on
this pointer variable to refer to the contents of the space:

     {
       struct foobar *ptr
          = (struct foobar *) malloc (sizeof (struct foobar));
       ptr->name = x;
       ptr->next = current_foobar;
       current_foobar = ptr;
     }