Question

I’m struggling to find why I can’t free a memory block. Something must be wrong with the pointer. A memory block for a structure is made in a function and the pointer used is stored in an array. Later the pointer is taken from the array to be used to free the memory.

I’ve figured out which free it is. I’ve placed “//This one” next to it.

#include <stdlib.h>

typedef enum {
    INT = 0,
    FLOAT = 1,
    STRING = 2,
    NONE = 3,
    BOOL = 4
} TYPE;

typedef struct {
    TYPE type;
    void * data;
} Variable;

typedef Variable ** var; //Convenience typedef for pointer to variable pointer

typedef struct {
    size_t size;
    Variable *** pool; //Pointer to the array of pointers to the Variable structure pointers. Pointer required for memory allocation and array consists of pointers to pointers so the pointers to the Variable structures can be changed throughtout different functions.
} VarPool; //Variable pools will just be used to deallocate all variables at the end of a scope

VarPool * global_pool; //Pool for global scope
VarPool ** pool_stack; //Keeps track of pools in stack
unsigned int pool_stack_size;

void init_pool_stack(){
    pool_stack = malloc(sizeof(VarPool *)); //Start with global_pool
    pool_stack_size = 1;
    global_pool = malloc(sizeof(VarPool));
    pool_stack[0] = global_pool;
    global_pool->pool = NULL;
    global_pool->size = 0;
}

Variable ** new_var(){ //Makes new variable
    Variable ** return_variable;
    Variable * new_variable = malloc(sizeof(Variable));
    VarPool * var_pool = pool_stack[pool_stack_size-1]; //Current variable pool on top of stack
    var_pool->size++;
    var_pool->pool = realloc(var_pool->pool,var_pool->size*sizeof(Variable **));
    return_variable = &new_variable;
    var_pool->pool[var_pool->size - 1] = return_variable;
    return return_variable; //Return pointer to new pointer so pointer can be changed to NULL when deleted
}
void empty_pool(){ //Frees all data from variable pool
    VarPool * var_pool = pool_stack[pool_stack_size-1]; //Current pool on top of stack
    for (int x = 0; x < var_pool->size; x++) {
        free(*var_pool->pool[x]); //Free variable data
    }
    free(var_pool->pool); //Free pool variable array
    free(var_pool); //This one
    pool_stack_size--;
    pool_stack = realloc(pool_stack, pool_stack_size*sizeof(VarPool *));
}

int main (int argc, const char * argv[]) {
    init_pool_stack();
    new_var();
    empty_pool(); //Finally empty globals pool which will deallocate pool_stack
    return 0;
}

Thank you for any help.

Answer 1

in new_var() you have (simplified)

Variable ** new_var(){ //Makes new variable
  Variable ** return_variable;
  Variable * new_variable = malloc(sizeof(Variable));

  return_variable = &new_variable;
  return return_variable;
}

The value returned from this function becomes invalid once the function ends.
The address of a local variable is only meaningful while that variable exists.