Question

I have a function that allocates string and returns its pointer. When I use it directly in call of other function, do I need to free the memory?

For example:

char *getRow(){
     char *someString = (char*) malloc(sizeof(char) * 10);
     strcpy(someString , "asdqwezxc");
     return someString;
}

int main(){
     printf("%s", getRow());
}

What happens with memory allocated in that function? Is there any way to free it or do I need to store it to some variable before using it?

Answer 1

Even if you have returned from the function, the memory is not deallocated unless you explicitly do so. So you must store the return value and call free.

int main(){
    char* str = getRow();
    printf("%s", str);
    free(str);
}