Should we check if memory allocations fail?

Question

I\'ve seen a lot of code that checks for NULL pointers whenever an allocation is made. This makes the code verbose, and if it\'s not done consistently, only when the program

Answer 1

Always check the return value, but for clarity, it's common to wrap malloc() in a function which never returns NULL:

void *
emalloc(size_t amt){
    void *v = malloc(amt);  
    if(!v){
        fprintf(stderr, "out of mem\n");
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }
    return v;
}

Then, later you can use

char *foo = emalloc(56);
foo[12] = 'A';

With no guilty conscience.