Allocating memory to char* C language

Question

Is it the correct way of allocating memory to a char*.

char* sides =\"5\";

char* tempSides;

tempSides = (char*)malloc(strlen(inSides) * sizeof(char));
         


        

Answer 1

Note that:

1. Strings are zero-terminated (\0), and strlen() doesn't count it;
2. By definition, sizeof(char) is 1 (byte), so it's not required;
3. If you use a C (not C++) compiler, there's no need to cast it to char *;

So that would be:

char *tempSides = malloc(strlen(inSides) + 1);

Still, if you want to duplicate the contents of inSides, you can use strdup, e.g.:

char *tempSides = strdup(inSides);
if (tempSides != NULL) {
    // do whatever you want...
    free(tempSides);
}