Malloc Full Form

What is the Full Form of Malloc?

The Abbreviation used for malloc is "Memory Allocation". It is a function in the C programming language that is used to dynamically allocate memory on the heap (i.e., the memory area outside of the main function). The malloc function takes a single argument that specifies the number of bytes of memory to allocate, and it returns a pointer to the first byte of the allocated memory.

For example, the following code uses malloc to allocate memory for an array of 10 integers:

#include <stdlib.h>

int main() {

int *array;

array = (int *)malloc(10 * sizeof(int));

return 0;

}

The malloc function is basically a part of the standard C library, and it is widely used in C programming to allocate memory dynamically at runtime. It is important to use malloc and other dynamic memory allocation functions correctly to avoid memory leaks and other issues.

Function

• Malloc(): In C programming language, the malloc function is used to allocate memory dynamically during the execution of a program. It takes a single argument as input, which is the number of bytes of memory that should be allocated. The function returns a pointer to the beginning of the block of memory that it has allocated. If the allocation is unsuccessful, malloc returns a null pointer.

• Calloc(): The calloc function is similar to malloc, but it takes two arguments: the number of objects to allocate memory for and the size of each object in bytes. calloc also initialises the memory that it allocates to zero.

• C Free(): The free function is used to release memory that was previously allocated by malloc or calloc. It takes a single argument, which is a pointer to the block of memory that should be released.

• Realloc(): The realloc function is used to change the size of a block of memory that was previously allocated by malloc or calloc. It takes two arguments: a pointer to the block of memory that should be resized and the new size of the memory block in bytes. If the block is being resized to a larger size, realloc may allocate a new block of memory and copy the contents of the old block into it before releasing the old block. If the block is being resized to a smaller size, realloc may simply adjust the size of the block in place. If realloc is unable to resize the block of memory, it returns a null pointer.

Difference Between Malloc() and Calloc()

The key difference between malloc and calloc is that malloc does not initialise the memory that it allocates, while calloc initialises the memory to zero.

Another difference is that calloc takes two arguments: the number of objects to allocate memory for and the size of each object in bytes. Malloc only takes a single argument, which is the total number of bytes to allocate.

For example, if you wanted to allocate memory for an array of 10 integers using malloc, you would do the following:

int *ptr = malloc(10 * sizeof(int));

To do the same thing with calloc, you would do the following:

int *ptr = calloc(10, sizeof(int));

Both of these statements allocate memory for ten integers and return a pointer to the first element of the array. However, the memory allocated by calloc is initialised to zero, while the memory allocated by malloc is not initialised.