Under what circumstances can malloc return NULL?

Question

It has never happened to me, and I\'ve programming for years now.

Can someone give me an example of a non-trivial program in which malloc will actually

Answer 1

Yes.

Just try to malloc more memory than your system can provide (either by exhausting your address space, or virtual memory - whichever is smaller).

malloc(SIZE_MAX)

will probably do it. If not, repeat a few times until you run out.