What is malloc in C?

Can you explain what malloc is in C?

Sure! malloc stands for memory allocation. It's a function in C used to allocate a specified amount of memory during the runtime of a program.

How does malloc work internally?

When you call malloc, it requests a block of memory from the heap. If successful, it returns a pointer to the beginning of the block.

What happens if malloc fails?

If malloc fails to allocate memory, it returns a NULL pointer. It's important to check for this to avoid dereferencing a NULL pointer.

Can you give an example of using malloc?

Certainly! Here's a simple example:

int *arr = (int *)malloc(5 * sizeof(int));
if (arr == NULL) {
    // Handle allocation failure
}