DANGLING POINTERS

INDEX
■ Dangling pointers
■ Garbage memory
■ Dynamic Memory Allocation
 Dangling pointers
■ A pointer pointing to a memory location that has been
deleted is called dangling pointer.
■ The most common bugs related to pointers and
memory management is dangling pointers.
■ Sometimes the programmer fails to initialize the
pointer with a valid address, then this type of
initialized pointer is known as a dangling pointer in C.
 Cause of dangling pointers
1. Variable goes out of the scope
2. Function call
3. De-allocating or free variable memory
 1. Variable goes out of the scope
• When the variable goes out of the scope then the
pointer pointing to the variable becomes a dangling
pointer.
• #include<stdio.h>  
• int main()  
• {  
•     char *str;  
•     {  
•         char a = ?A?;  
•         str = &a;  
•     }  
•     // a falls out of scope   
•     // str is now a dangling pointer   
•     printf("%s", *str);  
• }  
 2. Function call
■ Now, we will see how the pointer becomes dangling
when we call the function.
■ #include <stdio.h>  
■     int *fun(){  
■     int y=10;  
■     return &y;  
■   }  
■ int main()  
■ {  
■ int *p=fun();  
■ printf("%d", *p);  
■ return 0;  
■ }  
3. De-allocating or free variable
memory
#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
int main()
{
char **strPtr;
char *str = "Hello!";
strPtr = &str;
free(str);
//strPtr now becomes a dangling
pointer
printf("%s", *strPtr);
}
Avoiding dangling pointer
errors
char **strPtr;
char *str = "Hello!";
strPtr = &str;
free (str);
/* strPtr now becomes a dangling
pointer */
ptr = NULL;
/* strPtr is no more dangling pointer
*/
 Memory management
■ Memory management is a process of managing computer
memory, assigning the memory space to the programs to
improve the overall system performance.
■ Memory management is a form of resource management
applied to computer memory.
■ The essential requirement of memory management is to
provide ways to dynamically allocate portions of memory
to programs at their request, and free it for reuse when no
longer needed.
■ Explicit memory management
■ Automatic memory management
• Garbage memory
• Dynamic Memory Allocation
 Garbage memory
■ Garbage collection is a memory management technique.
■ Garbage collection is a form of automatic memory
management.
■ It automatically cleans up unused objects and pointers in
memory, allowing the resources to be used again.
■ Few languages need garbage collectors as part of the
language for good efficiency.
■ These languages are called as garbage-collected
languages.
■ For example, Java, C# and most of the scripting
languages needs garbage collection as part of their
functioning. 
 Dynamic Memory Allocation
■ Therefore, C Dynamic Memory Allocation can be
defined as a procedure in which the size of a data
structure (like Array) is changed during the runtime.
■ C/C++ provides some functions to achieve these tasks.
There are 4 library functions provided by C defined
under <stdlib.h> header file to facilitate dynamic
memory allocation in C programming. They are: 
1. malloc()
2. calloc()
3. free()
4. realloc()
malloc() Allocates single block of requested memory.
calloc() Allocates multiple block of requested
memory.
realloc() Reallocates the memory occupied by
malloc() or calloc() functions.
free() Frees the dynamically allocated memory.
 C malloc()
■ The “malloc” or “memory allocation” method in C
is used to dynamically allocate a single large block of
memory with the specified size.
■ It returns a pointer of type void which can be cast into
a pointer of any form.
■ It doesn’t Initialize memory at execution time so that it
has initializes each block with the default garbage
value initially. 
Syntax of malloc()
ptr = (castType*) malloc(size);
Example
ptr = (float*) malloc(100 * sizeof(float));
 C calloc()
“calloc” or “contiguous allocation” method in C is
used to dynamically allocate the specified number of
blocks of memory of the specified type.
It is very much similar to malloc() but has two different
points and these are:
1. It initializes each block with a default value ‘0’.
2. It has two parameters or arguments as compare to
malloc().
Syntax of calloc()
ptr = (castType*)calloc(n, size);
Example:
ptr = (float*) calloc(25, sizeof(float));
 C free()
■ “free” method in C is used to dynamically de-
allocate the memory.
■ The memory allocated using functions malloc() and
calloc() is not de-allocated on their own.
■ Hence the free() method is used, whenever the
dynamic memory allocation takes place.
■ It helps to reduce wastage of memory by freeing it.
Syntax of free()
free(ptr);
 C realloc()
■ “realloc” or “re-allocation” method in C is used to
dynamically change the memory allocation of a
previously allocated memory.
■ In other words, if the memory previously allocated
with the help of malloc or calloc is insufficient, realloc
can be used to dynamically re-allocate memory.
■ Re-allocation of memory maintains the already present
value and new blocks will be initialized with the
default garbage value.
Syntax of realloc()
ptr = realloc(ptr, x);