xref: /illumos-gate/usr/src/man/man3c/malloc.3c (revision 4585130b259133a26efae68275dbe56b08366deb)

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.Dd March 10, 2017
.Dt MALLOC 3C
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm malloc ,
.Nm calloc ,
.Nm free ,
.Nm memalign ,
.Nm realloc ,
.Nm reallocarray ,
.Nm valloc ,
.Nm alloca
.Nd memory allocator
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In stdlib.h
.Ft void *
.Fo malloc
.Fa "size_t size"
.Fc
.Ft void *
.Fo calloc
.Fa "size_t nelem"
.Fa "size_t elsize"
.Fc
.Ft void
.Fo free
.Fa "void *ptr"
.Fc
.Ft void *
.Fo memalign
.Fa "size_t alignment"
.Fa "size_t size"
.Fc
.Ft void *
.Fo realloc
.Fa "void *ptr"
.Fa "size_t size"
.Fc
.Ft void *
.Fo reallocarray
.Fa "void *ptr"
.Fa "size_t nelem"
.Fa "size_t elsize"
.Fc
.Ft void *
.Fo valloc
.Fa "size_t size"
.Fc
.In alloca.h
.Ft void *
.Fo alloca
.Fa "size_t size"
.Fc
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Fn malloc
and
.Fn free
functions provide a simple, general-purpose memory allocation package.
The
.Fn malloc
function returns a pointer to a block of at least
.Fa size
bytes suitably aligned for any use.
If the space assigned by
.Fn malloc
is overrun, the results are undefined.
.Pp
The argument to
.Fn free
is a pointer to a block previously allocated by
.Fn malloc ,
.Fn calloc ,
.Fn realloc ,
or
.Fn reallocarray .
After
.Fn free
is executed, this space is made available for further allocation by the
application, though not returned to the system.
Memory is returned to the system only upon termination of the application.
If
.Fa ptr
is a null pointer, no action occurs.
If a random number is passed to
.Fn free ,
the results are undefined.
.Pp
The
.Fn calloc
function allocates space for an array of
.Fa nelem
elements of size
.Fa elsize .
The space is initialized to zeros.
.Pp
The
.Fn memalign
function allocates
.Fa size
bytes on a specified alignment boundary and returns a pointer to the allocated
block.
The value of the returned address is guaranteed to be an even multiple of
.Fa alignment .
The value of
.Fa alignment
must be a power of two and must be greater than or equal to the size of a word.
.Pp
The
.Fn realloc
function changes the size of the block pointed to by
.Fa ptr
to
.Fa size
bytes and returns a pointer to the
.Pq possibly moved
block.
The contents will be unchanged up to the lesser of the new and old sizes.
If the new size of the block requires movement of the block, the space for the
previous instantiation of the block is freed.
If the new size is larger, the contents of the newly allocated portion of the
block are unspecified.
If
.Fa ptr
is
.Dv NULL ,
.Fn realloc
behaves like
.Fn malloc
for the specified size.
If
.Fa size
is 0 and
.Fa ptr
is not a null pointer, the space pointed to is freed.
.Pp
The
.Fn reallocarray
function is similar to
.Fn realloc ,
but operates on
.Fa nelem
elements of size
.Fa elsize
and checks for overflow in
.Fa nelem Ns * Ns Fa elsize
calculation.
.Pp
The
.Fn valloc
function has the same effect as
.Fn malloc ,
except that the allocated memory will be aligned to a multiple of the value
returned by
.Nm sysconf Ns Pq Dv _SC_PAGESIZE .
.Pp
The
.Fn alloca
function allocates
.Fa size
bytes of space in the stack frame of the caller, and returns a pointer to the
allocated block.
This temporary space is automatically freed when the caller returns.
If the allocated block is beyond the current stack limit, the resulting behavior
is undefined.
.Sh RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, each of the allocation functions returns a pointer
to space suitably aligned
.Pq after possible pointer coercion
for storage of any type of object.
.Pp
If there is no available memory,
.Fn malloc ,
.Fn realloc ,
.Fn reallocarray ,
.Fn memalign ,
.Fn valloc ,
and
.Fn calloc
return a null pointer.
.Pp
When
.Fn realloc
or
.Fn reallocarray
is called with
.Fa size
> 0 and returns
.Dv NULL ,
the block pointed to by
.Fa ptr
is left intact.
If
.Fa size ,
.Fa nelem ,
or
.Fa elsize
is 0, either a null pointer or a unique pointer that can be passed to
.Fn free
is returned.
.Pp
If
.Fn malloc ,
.Fn calloc ,
.Fn realloc ,
or
.Fn reallocarray
returns unsuccessfully,
.Va errno
will be set to indicate the error.
The
.Fn free
function does not set
.Va errno .
.Sh ERRORS
The
.Fn malloc ,
.Fn calloc ,
.Fn realloc ,
and
.Fn reallocarray
functions will fail if:
.Bl -tag -width "ENOMEM"
.It Er ENOMEM
The physical limits of the system are exceeded by
.Fa size
bytes of memory which cannot be allocated, or there's integer overflow in
.Fn reallocarray .
.It Er EAGAIN
There is not enough memory available to allocate
.Fa size
bytes of memory; but the application could try again later.
.El
.Sh USAGE
Portable applications should avoid using
.Fn valloc
but should instead use
.Fn malloc
or
.Xr mmap 2 .
On systems with a large page size, the number of successful
.Fn valloc
operations might be 0.
.Pp
These default memory allocation routines are safe for use in multithreaded
applications but are not scalable.
Concurrent accesses by multiple threads are single-threaded through the use of a
single lock.
Multithreaded applications that make heavy use of dynamic memory allocation
should be linked with allocation libraries designed for concurrent access, such
as
.Xr libumem 3LIB
or
.Xr libmtmalloc 3LIB .
Applications that want to avoid using heap allocations
.Pq with Xr brk 2
can do so by using either
.Xr libumem 3LIB
or
.Xr libmapmalloc 3LIB .
The allocation libraries
.Xr libmalloc 3LIB
and
.Xr libbsdmalloc 3LIB
are available for special needs.
.Pp
Comparative features of the various allocation libraries can be found in the
.Xr umem_alloc 3MALLOC
manual page.
.Sh INTERFACE STABILITY
The
.Fn malloc ,
.Fn calloc ,
.Fn free ,
.Fn realloc ,
.Fn valloc
functions are
.Sy Standard.
.Pp
The
.Fn reallocarray
function is
.Sy Committed .
.Pp
The
.Fn memalign
and
.Fn alloca
functions are
.Sy Stable .
.Sh MT-LEVEL
.Sy Safe.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr brk 2 ,
.Xr getrlimit 2 ,
.Xr libbsdmalloc 3LIB ,
.Xr libmalloc 3LIB ,
.Xr libmapmalloc 3LIB ,
.Xr libmtmalloc 3LIB ,
.Xr libumem 3LIB ,
.Xr umem_alloc 3MALLOC ,
.Xr watchmalloc 3MALLOC ,
.Xr attributes 5
.Sh WARNINGS
Undefined results will occur if the size requested for a block of memory
exceeds the maximum size of a process's heap, which can be obtained with
.Xr getrlimit 2 .
.Pp
The
.Fn alloca
function is machine-, compiler-, and most of all, system-dependent.
Its use is strongly discouraged.