Example
A programmer wants to allocate a buffer of 100 bytes of memory while debugging. The system memory allocating routine will allocate 108 bytes instead, adding 4 leading and trailing guard bytes, and return a pointer shifted by the 4 leading guard bytes to the right, hiding them from the programmer. The programmer should then work with the received pointer without the knowledge of the presence of the guard bytes.
If the programmer's algorithm writes right outside the assigned space, it will overwrite the guard bytes. Later, upon deallocation, the deallocating routine will check, whether the guard bytes are modified and reports an error if appropriate.
Read more about this topic: Guard Byte
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“Our intellect is not the most subtle, the most powerful, the most appropriate, instrument for revealing the truth. It is life that, little by little, example by example, permits us to see that what is most important to our heart, or to our mind, is learned not by reasoning but through other agencies. Then it is that the intellect, observing their superiority, abdicates its control to them upon reasoned grounds and agrees to become their collaborator and lackey.”
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