From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Ray Olszewski Subject: Re: malloc and free Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 10:53:05 -0800 Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.1.20041224104634.01f589e0@celine> References: <20041224183956.11788.qmail@web52909.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Return-path: In-Reply-To: <20041224183956.11788.qmail@web52909.mail.yahoo.com> Sender: linux-newbie-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: newbie At 06:39 PM 12/24/2004 +0000, Ankit Jain wrote: >hi > >routine xyz uses malloc and free functions. it gives >accurate and correct result if called once. > >but if the function is called in a loop N number of >times then probably it gives segmentation fault. > >what is the reason? can any body guess or test code >is needed? Probably test code is needed. But if you want a guess ... the "free" call contains an error that leads to a memory leak. If you call the routine once, that's no big deal, and the routine will appear to return "accurate and correct result". But if you call it a lot, memory consumption goes up past the point where the kernel can support it and a segfault results. That's just a shot in the dark, though ... and even it assumes that N is a big number (thousands at least), not 10 or 20. Your use of "probably" does make it an appealing guess, though. Really, though, you are posing the question, "What can go wrong with malloc() and free()?" Put that way, it is obvious that it is too vagure for a troubleshooting list. Let's see the code, as well as whatever is calling the code. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs