Allocating memory to char* C language

Question

Is it the correct way of allocating memory to a char*.

char* sides =\"5\";

char* tempSides;

tempSides = (char*)malloc(strlen(inSides) * sizeof(char));
         


        

Answer 1

No, not really. As others have already noted, you need to allocate space for the NUL terminator.

In addition, you generally should not cast the return from malloc. It can cover up a bug where you've forgotten to #include the correct header. Multiplying by sizeof(char) is also pointless, since the standards (both C and C++) define sizeof(char) to always be 1.

Finally, every call to malloc should include a test of the result. I'd wrap the whole thing up into a function:

char *dupe_string(char const *string) { 
    char *temp;
    if (NULL!=(temp=malloc(strlen(string)+1)))
        strcpy(temp, string);
    return temp;
}