On Sun, 16 May 2010 22:40:25 +0200, Colomban wrote:
Le dimanche 16 mai 2010 à 19:46 +0200, Enrico Tröger a écrit :
Just for clarity, there is no technical requirement that g_strndup() or similar should be followed by a g_free() instead of free(). g_free() simply calls free() with the difference that it checks for a NULL pointer before which is good in most cases. And using g_free() there is also better for readability.
Sorry but that's not exactly true: it is in the context of Geany, but
No need for sorry, if at all, I had to say sorry :).
it isn't in general. g_free() frees a memory chunk with the registered free function in the GLib's memory VTable, which by default is libc's free() -- and then g_free() and free() are equivalent. But if for a reason or another the VTable is set to another one, a plain free() may be invalid since the memory may not have been allocated by libc's malloc(), calloc() or realloc().
Exactly. Sorry for not being exact enough, actually I didn't mention the above facts on purpose to not complicate things more than necessary.
And free(NULL) is always a valid call ;)
Oh, oops. I just checked free(3) on my system and it actually says that if NULL is passed, no operation is performed. I was quite sure that results in undefined behaviour. No idea how I got this idea...maybe it's not true for all systems (systems other than Linux, maybe some Unices or Windows or who knows :D).
Regards, Enrico