3.2 Allocating Storage For Program Data

This section covers how ordinary programs manage storage for their data, including the famous malloc function and some fancier facilities special to the GNU C Library and GNU Compiler.

• Memory Allocation and C: How to get different kinds of allocation in C.
• Unconstrained Allocation: The malloc facility allows fully general dynamic allocation.
• Allocation Debugging: Finding memory leaks and not freed memory.
• Obstacks: Obstacks are less general than malloc but more efficient and convenient.
• Variable Size Automatic: Allocation of variable-sized blocks of automatic storage that are freed when the calling function returns.