What is a memory leak?

vikesh.u · 09-07-2009, 09:15 AM

I am new to linux..
Please explain me in detail about memory leak....
I have Googled a bit but could not understand much..
please help me..

choogendyk · 09-07-2009, 09:33 AM

Basically it is a bug in a program. It requests memory and never releases it. If that is repeated over and over, it can eat so much memory that it locks up the system. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak for more detail.

smeezekitty · 09-07-2009, 12:47 PM

heres a code that would be a major mem leak:

Code:

#include <stdlib.h>
int main(){
malloc(500);
return (0);
}