Type Safety
malloc
returns a void pointer (void *
), which indicates that it is a pointer to a region of unknown data type. The use of casting is only required in C++ due to the strong type system, whereas this is not the case in C. The lack of a specific pointer type returned from malloc
is type-unsafe behaviour according to some programmers: malloc
allocates based on byte count but not on type. This is different from the C++ new operator that returns a pointer whose type relies on the operand. (see C Type Safety).
One may "cast" (see type conversion) this pointer to a specific type:
There are advantages and disadvantages to performing such a cast.
Read more about this topic: C Dynamic Memory Allocation
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