Question

Looking at this question that has just been asked: Inconveniences of pointers to static variables would doing something like this be considered bad practice, then?

char* strpart(char* string, int start, int count)
{
    char* strtemp; 
    int i = 0; int j = 0;
    int strL = strlen(string);

    if ( count == 0 )
    {
        count = strL;
    }

    strtemp = (char*) calloc((count + 1), sizeof(char));
    for ( i = start; i < (start+count); i++ )
    {
        strtemp[j] = string[i];
        j++;
    }
    return strtemp;
}

Sorry it’s written quickly, but the basic principle is – when NOT using a static buffer inside a function is it bad practice to assign memory inside a function? I assume so because it wouldn’t be freed, would it? Thought I ought to ask though.

Answer 1

It’s not bad pratice but it can easily create memory leaks (the callers have to remember to free the memory).

One thing I like to do is use a naming convention to indicate what functions can allocate. For example, I’d name that function:

char* strpart_alloc(char* string, int start, int count)