Finally I have a valid reason to learn about memory management. It was also hella weird when encountering it.

  • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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    2 months ago

    Not freeing your memory at all is a memory management strategy. I think some LaTeX compilers use it as well as surprisingly many Java applications.

    • entwine@programming.dev
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      2 months ago

      This non-sarcastically. The operating system is better at cleaning up memory than you, and it’s completely pointless to free all your allocations if you’re about to exit the program. For certain workloads, it can lead to cleaner, less buggy code to not free anything.

      It’s important to know the difference between a “memory leak” and unfreed memory. A leak refers to memory that cannot be freed because you lost track of the address to it. Leaks are only really a problem if the amount of leaked memory is unbounded or huge. Every scenario is different.

      Of course, that’s not an excuse to be sloppy with memory management. You should only ever fail to free memory intentionally.

    • da_cow (she/her)@feddit.orgOP
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      2 months ago

      That’s the funny thing. I had a (yet) very basic Programm and did not care at all about memory management. When I did some testing I realised, that for some reason when I printed string 1 I also got characters from string 2.

        • da_cow (she/her)@feddit.orgOP
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          2 months ago

          This is the code I used:

          #include <stdio.h>
          #include <string.h>
          
          #define MAX_ACCOUNTS 255
          
          typedef struct
          {
              unsigned int id;
              char account_creation_date [10];
              char first_name [255];
              char last_name [255];
              char country_code [2];
              unsigned int iban;
              char password [255];
              double balance;
          } account;
          
          account accounts_db[MAX_ACCOUNTS];
          unsigned int accounts_created = 0;
          
          account get_account_id (unsigned int id)
          {
              int i = 0;
              while(i < MAX_ACCOUNTS)
              {
                  if(accounts_db[i].id == id)
                  {
                      return accounts_db[i];
                  }
                  i++;
              }
              account account;
              account.id = -1;
              return account;
          }
          
          void create_account(char first_name [255], char last_name [255], char password [255], char country_code [2])
          {
              account new_account;
              new_account.id = accounts_created;
              strcpy(new_account.first_name, first_name);
              strcpy(new_account.last_name, last_name);
              strcpy(new_account.password, password);
              strcpy(new_account.country_code, country_code);
              strcpy(new_account.account_creation_date, "");
              new_account.balance = 0.0;
              new_account.iban = 0;
              accounts_db[accounts_created] = new_account;
              accounts_created++;
          }
          
          int main()
          {
              char first_name [255]  = "Max";
              char last_name [255] = "Mustermann";
              char country_code [2] = "DE";
              char password [255]= "password";
              create_account(first_name, last_name, password,country_code);
              account account = get_account_id(0);
              printf("Name: %s %s \n", account.first_name, account.last_name);
              printf("Account creation date: %s\n", account.account_creation_date);
              printf("IBAN: %s %d", account.country_code, account.iban);
          }```
          
          When you run it you can see, that behind the country code of the IBAN you get the first two letters of the surename
          • da_cow (she/her)@feddit.orgOP
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            2 months ago

            I found the mistake. Since the country code char array only has a size of 2 it overwrites the \0 char causing the memory to leak.

          • LedgeDrop@lemmy.zip
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            2 months ago

            Without getting too critical of your code (congrats BTW), never use strcpy instead use strlcpy.

            strcpy will happily allow you to create buffer overflows (a common challenge with C) which will cause your application to crash.

            You’ll find more details here.

            Good luck!

            • da_cow (she/her)@feddit.orgOP
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              2 months ago

              Thanks, I did not knew this. I always appreciate constructive criticism. I am quite new to C so theres a shit ton of stuff I have never done or dont even know about.

    • csm10495@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Upvoted. This is something I learned rather recently. Sometimes it’s more performant to slowly leak than it would be to free properly. Then take x amount of time to restart every n amount of time.

      • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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        2 months ago

        A middle ground is a memory pool or an object pool where you reuse the memory rather than free it. Instead, you free it all in one operation when that phase of your application is complete. I’ve seen this done for particle systems to reduce overhead.