Question

I am pretty new to C, and am doing toy programs to learn it.
The following code compiles, outputs correctly, but Valgrind reports a memory leak:

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include "graph.h"

void add_vertex(vertex *v_p, char *name) {
    if(strlen(name) == 0) { 
        printf("error");
    }
    v_p->name = (char *)malloc(strlen(name) + 1);
    if(v_p->name == NULL) {
        printf("error");
    }
    strcpy(v_p->name, name);
    v_p->cluster = -1;
    v_p->deleted = 0;
    printf("added vertex.\n");
}

void free_vertex(vertex *ver) {
    if(ver->name) {free(ver->name);printf("free'd name\n");}
    free(ver);

}

int main() {
    int Nu = 0;
    vertex *arr = (vertex *)malloc(2 * sizeof(vertex));
    vertex *_temp;
    int i =0;
    add_vertex(arr, "Hello");
    add_vertex(arr+1, "World");
    _temp = (vertex *)realloc(arr, 4*sizeof(vertex));
    printf("reallocated\n");
    if (_temp != NULL) {
        arr = _temp;
        add_vertex(arr+2, "this");
        add_vertex(arr +3, "worked");
        Nu=4;
    }
    else{
        printf("FAIL\n");
        Nu=2;
    }
    for (; i <Nu; i++) {
        printf("%s\n",(arr+i)->name);
    }
    for (; i <Nu; i++) {
       free_vertex(arr+i);
    }
    free(arr);
    return 0;
}

The vertex is coded in a header file,

typedef struct vertex_t
{
    char*   name;
    int     cluster;
    int    deleted;
}vertex

The output is:

added vertex.
added vertex.
reallocated
added vertex.
added vertex.
Hello
World
this
worked

It doesn’t print “free’d memory”, so where was it free’d?
here is what Valgrind had to say about it:

==1436== HEAP SUMMARY:
==1436==     in use at exit: 24 bytes in 4 blocks
==1436==   total heap usage: 6 allocs, 2 frees, 120 bytes allocated
==1436== 
==1436== 5 bytes in 1 blocks are definitely lost in loss record 1 of 4
==1436==    at 0x4C2893D: malloc (in /usr/lib/valgrind/vgpreload_memcheck-amd64-linux.so)
==1436==    by 0x4006C3: add_vertex (graph.c:10)
==1436==    by 0x4007EF: main (graph.c:37)
==1436== 
==1436== 6 bytes in 1 blocks are definitely lost in loss record 2 of 4
==1436==    at 0x4C2893D: malloc (in /usr/lib/valgrind/vgpreload_memcheck-amd64-linux.so)
==1436==    by 0x4006C3: add_vertex (graph.c:10)
==1436==    by 0x400797: main (graph.c:31)
==1436== 
==1436== 6 bytes in 1 blocks are definitely lost in loss record 3 of 4
==1436==    at 0x4C2893D: malloc (in /usr/lib/valgrind/vgpreload_memcheck-amd64-linux.so)
==1436==    by 0x4006C3: add_vertex (graph.c:10)
==1436==    by 0x4007AC: main (graph.c:32)
==1436== 
==1436== 7 bytes in 1 blocks are definitely lost in loss record 4 of 4
==1436==    at 0x4C2893D: malloc (in /usr/lib/valgrind/vgpreload_memcheck-amd64-linux.so)
==1436==    by 0x4006C3: add_vertex (graph.c:10)
==1436==    by 0x400804: main (graph.c:38)
==1436== 
==1436== LEAK SUMMARY:
==1436==    definitely lost: 24 bytes in 4 blocks
==1436==    indirectly lost: 0 bytes in 0 blocks
==1436==      possibly lost: 0 bytes in 0 blocks
==1436==    still reachable: 0 bytes in 0 blocks
==1436==         suppressed: 0 bytes in 0 blocks

What is the problem with the code? Should I allocate the name of the vertex differently?
Thanks for the help!

EDIT: Thanks to all of you! I’ve fixed the code, now I am not freeing individual elements, i.e.

void free_vertex(vertex *ver) {
    if(ver->name) {free(ver->name);printf("free'd name\n");}
}

and of course re-setting the i to 0. can’t believe I overlooked it. Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

You are not resetting i in the loop that frees the code. Those loops should look like this:

for (i = 0; i <Nu; i++) {
    printf("%s\n",(arr+i)->name);
}
for (i = 0; i <Nu; i++) {
   free_vertex(arr+i);
}

Added another point:

free_vertex() should not have the:

free(ver)

line, which is what others are saying.

free_vertex() and add_vertex() should be parallel in the sense that free frees only what was allocated in add.