Re: free() allocated memory twice..

From:
Kai-Uwe Bux <jkherciueh@gmx.net>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:25:58 -0500
Message-ID:
<gn2soo$o04$1@news.doubleSlash.org>
ormax3@gmail.com wrote:

[about: free() allocated memory twice...]

.. is it an undefined behaviour??


Yes.

You would expect this code to this
code ti give a segmentation fault but it doesnt.. Why??


Because the behavior is _undefined_. That means, all your expectations can
be off.

Sample Code:
---------------
typedef struct {
 char name[10];
 int x;
} Employee;

int main()
{
 // allocate and fill e1
 Employee **e1 = (Employee**) malloc( 5 * sizeof(Employee*) );
 for(i=0 ; i<5 ; ++i) {
  e1[i] = (Employee*) malloc( sizeof(Employee) );
  fillEmployee(e1[i]);
 }

 // make shallow copy
 Employee **e2 = (Employee**) malloc( 5 * sizeof(Employee*) );
 for(i=0 ; i<5 ; ++i) {
  e2[i] = e1[i];
 }

 // free the copy
 for(i=0 ; i<5 ; ++i) {
  free(e2[i]);
 }
 free(e2);
 e2 = NULL;

 // free the original one
 for(i=0 ; i<5 ; ++i) {
  free(e1[i]);
 }
 free(e1);
 e1 = NULL;

 return 0;
}


BTW: asside from exhibiting undefined behavior, the code is not idiomatic.
You may want to consider the transition to std::string, std::vector, value
semantics, and if needed, new and delete.

Best

Kai-Uwe Bux

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