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Memory leaks and dangling pointers

If the allocated memory is not released or de-allocated, it causes a memory leak. /* Function with memory leak because programmer forgot to release dynamically allocated memory */ 

#include<stdlib.h> 
void f() 
{ int *ptr =(int*) malloc(10*sizeof(int)); 
/* Do some work */ 
return; /* returns without freeing ptr*/ 
} 
/* Function without memory leak because memory freed by programmer when no longer needed*/ 
#include<stdlib.h> 
void f() 
{ int *ptr =(int*) malloc(10*sizeof(int)); 
/* Do some work */ 
free (ptr): 
return; 
}
A dangling pointer points to a memory location that has already been freed. If we try to access the memory location using the pointer it causes a segmentation fault. 

/* Function without memory leak */ 
#include<stdlib.h> 
void f() 
{ 
int *ptr =(int*) malloc (sizeof(int)) 
*ptr = 10; //valid 
*free (ptr): 
**ptr = 20; // invalid because here ptr is dangling pointer. 
return; 
}

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