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bobmcnamara

At the end of main, if the count wasn't balanced, then you knew you had a mismatch between malloc()/free().

If malloc() had returned a real pointer, you'd have to free that too.

> wouldn’t it be better just to return NULL and guarantee that 0-sized allocations never use any memory at all?

Better: takes less memory Worse: blinds you to this portability issue.

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> At the end of main, if the count wasn't balanced, then you knew you had a mismatch between malloc()/free().

A mismatch between malloc(0) and free(-1).

You’d know nothing about calls to malloc with non-zero sizes.

Those are identifiable by the end state of the heap not being empty.

Yeah, exactly, that’s my point. How many programs have memory leaks limited to (or even just materially affected by) 0-sized allocations? I’d have to imagine its a very small minority.

They're uncommon for sure. In the past they've been an issue for me on constrained systems where they can frag the heap as badly as any other long lived allocation.

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