How do realloc and memcpy work?

Question

I have two questions.

1. Do realloc() and memcpy() copy the entries in an array to another in a way faster than just iterating on eac

Answer 1

1 - No. They copy a block at a time. See http://www.embedded.com/design/configurable-systems/4024961/Optimizing-Memcpy-improves-speed for a pretty good analysis.

2 - This is implementation dependent. See http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual/libc/Changing-Block-Size.html for glibc details. "In several allocation implementations, making a block smaller sometimes necessitates copying it"