Question

I started some socket programming, and I ran across the function inet_ntoa . The function has the prototype char * inet_ntoa(struct in_addr in);.

So how/where will this string be allocated? Am I expected to call free on it?

Answer 1

From inet_ntoa(3):

The inet_ntoa() function converts the
Internet host address in given in
network byte order to a string in
standard numbers-and-dots notation.
The string is returned in a statically allocated buffer, which subsequent
calls will overwrite

So, no.