Memory Leak When Using `realloc` in a Loop with Structs in C
Hey everyone, I'm running into an issue that's driving me crazy. I need some guidance on I'm working on a personal project and I'm relatively new to this, so bear with me. Hey everyone, I'm running into an issue that's driving me crazy... I'm experiencing a memory leak when using `realloc` inside a loop to resize an array of structs in C. The goal is to dynamically expand the array as I receive more data, but I suspect I'm not handling memory correctly. Here's a simplified version of what I'm doing: ```c #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> typedef struct { int id; char name[50]; } Item; int main() { Item *array = NULL; size_t size = 0; size_t capacity = 2; array = malloc(capacity * sizeof(Item)); if (!array) return 1; // Handle malloc failure for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { if (size == capacity) { capacity *= 2; Item *temp = realloc(array, capacity * sizeof(Item)); if (!temp) { free(array); // Free existing memory return 1; // Handle realloc failure } array = temp; } array[size].id = i; snprintf(array[size].name, sizeof(array[size].name), "Item %d", i); size++; } // Print items to verify correctness for (size_t j = 0; j < size; j++) { printf("ID: %d, Name: %s\n", array[j].id, array[j].name); } free(array); // Free the array before exiting return 0; } ``` After running this code, I noticed that my program consumes more memory than expected, which leads me to believe there might be a leak somewhere. I've used `malloc` and `realloc`, but I still see a memory usage increase over time when running under tools like Valgrind. I double-checked that Iām freeing the initial memory allocated, yet the leak persists. Am I missing something in the way I handle `realloc`? What best practices should I follow to avoid such memory leaks in this scenario? I'm working on a application that needs to handle this. What's the best practice here? How would you solve this? For context: I'm using C on macOS. This is for a mobile app running on Ubuntu 22.04. I'm working in a Debian environment.