malloc() are my comments correct

/* First of all am I right in thinking that malloc(10) in the program */
/* below could be malloc(6) hello + '\0' = 6 and if so whats the */
/* reason for malloc(10), secondly could I have something like */
/* malloc(amount) if I declared a variable int amount; then did */
/* printf("Input amount of numbers to be stored"); */
/* scanf("%d",&amount); */

/* Finally this memory has to be freed before the program terminates */
/* to avoid a memory leak, what is and what does a memory leak do */


#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <alloc.h>
#include <process.h>
#include<conio.h>

int main(void)
{
char *str;

/* allocate memory for string */
if ((str = (char *) malloc(10)) == NULL)
{
printf("Not enough memory to allocate buffer\n");
exit(1); /* terminate program if out of memory */
}

/* copy "Hello" into string */
strcpy(str, "Hello");

/* display string */
printf("String is %s\n", str);

/* free memory */

free(str);

return 0;
}

1)
Yes, 5 letters + 1 NULL terminator. malloc(6) should be enough.

2)
malloc(sizeofstring) is ok. This is one of the great advantages of dynamic memory allocation. You can't make this: char String[size];

3)
A memory leak is if you exit the program without freeing the memory, or if you tell the pointer to point at something else without freeing that memory first. That memory will then remain allocated with no chance of deallocating it.
Good structuration in your program is the best way to prevent leaks.

Hope this helps

>str = (char *) malloc(10)
In ISO standard C you shouldn't need to cast malloc, in fact if you do it could hide other errors in your program.

Really? I thought malloc() by definition returned a void *.

I took a look at the standard and noticed that malloc does return void *. But in the examples, no casting is done.

A comment to the code:

Code:

---

    /* allocate memory for string */
    if ((str = (char *) malloc (10)) == NULL)
    {
        printf("Not enough memory to allocate buffer\n");
       
        #ifdef SHIRO_CODE
        /* I would use a return instead of exit, mainly since
            main is of type int, so it should return an int when
            exiting. This int can be an errorvalue. */
        return ERROR_VALUE;
        #else
        exit(1); /* terminate program if out of memory */
        #endif
    }

---