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

The correct way of allocation dynamic memory to tempSides is as shown below:

char* sides ="5";
char* tempSides;
tempSides = (char*)malloc((strlen(sides) + 1) * sizeof(char));

char* stores a string data, similar to char[]. Strings are null (\0) terminated. So extra one byte should be allocated for null character storage.

Dynamically allocated memory block must be freed using free() after it's use is over. If not freed, memory leak would happen.

free(tempSides);

One the memory is freed, NULL must be assigned to prevent it from being a dangling pointer.

tempSides = NULL;