c++ - How is dynamically allocated space freed when a program is interrupted using Ctrl-C?

Question

Given the following code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    int *p;
    p = (int *)malloc(10 * sizeof(int));

    while(1);
    return 0;
}

When the above code is compiled and run, and is interrupted while in execution by pressing Ctrl+C, how is the memory allocated to p freed? What is the role of the Operating System here? And how is it different from that in case Of C++, done using the new operator?

Answer 1

When a process terminates, the operating system reclaims all the memory that the process was using.

The reason why people make a big deal out of memory leaks even when the OS reclaims the memory your app was using when it terminates is that usually non-trivial applications will run for a long time slowly gobbling up all the memory on the system. It's less of a problem for very short-lifetime programs. (But you can never tell when a one-liner will become a huge program, so don't have any memory leaks even in small programs.)