Should we check if memory allocations fail?

Question

I\'ve seen a lot of code that checks for NULL pointers whenever an allocation is made. This makes the code verbose, and if it\'s not done consistently, only when the program

Answer 1

In a hosted environment error checking the return of malloc makes not much sense nowadays. Most machines have a virtual address space of 64 bit. You'd need a lot of time to exhaust that. Your program will most likely fail at a completely different place, namely when your physical+swap memory is exhausted. It will have shown completely ridiculous performance before that, because it only was swapping and the user will have triggered Cntrl-C long before you ever come there.

Segfaulting "nicely" on a null pointer reference would be a clear point to see where things fail in a debugger. But in my practice I have never seen a failed malloc as a cause.

When programming for embedded systems the picture changes completely. There you definitively should check for failed malloc.

Edit: To clarify that after the edit of the question. The kind of programs/systems described there are clearly not "embedded". I have never seen malloc fail under the circumstances described there.