nixCraft

#1 (**permalink**) 05-25-2005, 11:42 AM

Hi

Anyone know what is dangling pointers? If possible give me some example… I’m using FreeBSD with GCC

Thx

rockdalinux · #2 (**permalink**) 05-25-2005, 07:17 PM

Pointers that point to invalid addresses is called dangling pointers.

Some Examples that causes dangling pointers:

Casting arbitrary integers to pointers
Adjusting pointers beyond the bounds of arrays
Deallocating storage that one or more pointers still reference

C code/example of dangling pointers:

Code:

somefunc(){
x=(int *)malloc(sizeof(int));
...
free(x);
return (x); /* x is dangling pointer */
}

To avoid dangling pointers always assign NULL in C after freeing memory:

Code:

...
free(x);
x=NULL;
....

#3 (**permalink**) 05-26-2005, 10:54 AM

Thanks a lot

It is clear now...

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what is dangling pointers under GCC?