Is there any problem to allocate memory in an application and free it in a function called from a dll/dylib?
But to allocate memory in a function from a dll/dylib and free it in the caller application?
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Is there any problem to allocate memory in an application and free it in a function called from a dll/dylib?
But to allocate memory in a function from a dll/dylib and free it in the caller application?
For a static library it is not generally a problem, but is usually not a good idea for dynamic libraries. Especially for libraries shared between projects.
The problem is you need to ensure that the memory allocation functions (new/delete, malloc/free) match exactly between your calling code and the dynamic library. For example, if you statically link the C-runtime with your executable, but the dynamic library is dynamically linked (or vice versa) then you have separate code running malloc for the executable vs the dynamic library.
To avoid any problems dynamic libraries will often expose their own alloc and free routines to guarantee consistency.