| PROLOG | NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | EXAMPLES | APPLICATION USAGE | RATIONALE | FUTURE DIRECTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT |  | 
FREE(3P)                  POSIX Programmer's Manual                 FREE(3P)
       This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux
       implementation of this interface may differ (consult the
       corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or
       the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
       free — free allocated memory
       #include <stdlib.h>
       void free(void *ptr);
       The functionality described on this reference page is aligned with
       the ISO C standard. Any conflict between the requirements described
       here and the ISO C standard is unintentional. This volume of
       POSIX.1‐2008 defers to the ISO C standard.
       The free() function shall cause the space pointed to by ptr to be
       deallocated; that is, made available for further allocation. If ptr
       is a null pointer, no action shall occur. Otherwise, if the argument
       does not match a pointer earlier returned by a function in
       POSIX.1‐2008 that allocates memory as if by malloc(), or if the space
       has been deallocated by a call to free() or realloc(), the behavior
       is undefined.
       Any use of a pointer that refers to freed space results in undefined
       behavior.
       The free() function shall not return a value.
       No errors are defined.
       The following sections are informative.
       None.
       There is now no requirement for the implementation to support the
       inclusion of <malloc.h>.
       None.
       None.
       calloc(3p), malloc(3p), posix_memalign(3p), realloc(3p)
       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, stdlib.h(0p)
       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
       from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information
       Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open
       Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the
       Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open
       Group.  (This is POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1
       applied.) In the event of any discrepancy between this version and
       the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and
       The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original
       Standard can be obtained online at http://www.unix.org/online.html .
       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are
       most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the
       source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
IEEE/The Open Group                 2013                            FREE(3P)
Pages that refer to this page: stdlib.h(0p), calloc(3p), getdelim(3p), malloc(3p), open_memstream(3p), posix_memalign(3p), putenv(3p), realloc(3p), realpath(3p), strdup(3p), tempnam(3p), wcsdup(3p)