XMALLOC(3pub)

💖 XMALLOC — the 3pub girlies' guide to memory allocation 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to the C Programmer's Manual, 3pub edition ✨ this is the page for xmalloc, xrealloc, xfree, xstrdup, xmemdup and memdup — the memory allocation squad from Publib 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

xmalloc, xrealloc, xfree, xstrdup, xmemdup, memdup — memory allocation functions for Publib, no cap 🌸

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

#include <publib.h>

void *xmalloc(size_t bytes);
void *xrealloc(void *ptr, size_t bytes);
void xfree(void *ptr);
char *xstrdup(const char *string);
void *memdup(const void *mem, size_t bytes);
void *xmemdup(const void *mem, size_t bytes);

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so these are the utility functions for memory allocation that live in the publib library 🎀 and listen, they're literally the error-checking glow-up versions of your standard-library faves:

• xmalloc is the error checking version of malloc
• xrealloc is the error checking version of realloc
• xfree is the error checking version of free

they are guaranteed to never return unless there was no problem 💖 like, if xmalloc can't allocate the amount of memory you asked for? it prints an error message and terminates the program, periodt. so the caller does not need to check for a NULL return value, and the code that calls these functions is simpler because there's no error checking cluttering it up. it's giving clean code, it's giving main character energy 👑

similarly, xstrdup is the error checking version of the common (though not standard) strdup routine, which makes a duplicate of a string by allocating memory for the copy with malloc 🦋 (and for systems that don't have strdup? publib provides one in its portability module, and it's always declared in <publib.h>, iykyk ✨)

memdup is similar to strdup — it creates a copy of an arbitrary memory area (the arguments are a pointer to the beginning of the area, and its size) by allocating memory for the copy with malloc. and xmemdup is its error checking version 💜

⚠️ NOTE ⚠️

bestie this is the important bit, don't skip it 🙈

• xmalloc and xrealloc treat a request to allocate a block of 0 bytes as an error 💀 like, zero is not the vibe.
• xrealloc will allow its first argument to be NULL though 👍

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• publib(3)
• malloc(3)
• strdup(3)

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

Lars Wirzenius (lars.wirzenius@helsinki.fi) — the icon who wrote this, we stan 💖

and that's the whole page bestie, slay 🌟 this came to you from the Publib era of the C Programmer's Manual, filed under XMALLOC(3pub) — go forth and allocate responsibly, mwah 💅💖