freeing variables

warney_out · 10-01-2004, 03:01 AM

i have the following variable
char text1[30]=" ";
char text2[30]=":";
then after putting some values in text1 and text2 i do
strcat(text1,text2);
then i need to clear text1 and text2 i tried the free command but it gave me a segmentation error....what is wrong??

Hko · 10-01-2004, 04:34 AM

Only use free() when you have assinged memory to a pointer by calling malloc() or calloc(). And that's not what you are doing in your example. So free() won't work in your case and will generate segmentation faults.

A segmentation fault occurs when a program accesses (or free's) memory it should access (or free).

What do you mean by "clearing" text1 and text2:

Just make the strings empty?
Then just do:
Code:
```
text[0] = '\0';
text[0] = '\0';
```
Make them disappear from memory? Just don't:
If they are global variables (declared outside any function) you just cannot. If they are declared inside a function, they will be free when that function returns.

vharishankar · 10-01-2004, 07:34 AM

The variables used in your program are allocated on the stack (program memory) and not on the heap (dynamic data memory). Therefore there is no need to free the memory as they are not technically on the 'allocated' memory or heap.