Question

When shall I free my unsigned char* if I need to pass the unsigned char* into a function?
Example

void myFunction(unsigned char *request){
   // do I need to use free(request); here?
}  

 int main (){       
 // main code 

 unsigned char *request = NULL;
 // read from buffer and reallocate memory (using realloc & memcpy)
 myFunction(request); // I do not want to read or use "request" after this function call. 
 free(request); // is this ok? Or should this be inside myFunction also?

 return 0; 
 }

Answer 1

Use free() on something as soon as you’re done using it. So for instance, you probably wouldn’t do it inside myFunction() because you’re probably still going to be interested in the value pointed at by request when you exit that function back to main.