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

There's a problem with that. tempSides will point to an uninitialized block of memory of size 1. If you intend to copy the sides string into tempSides, then you will need to allocate a size one byte longer, in order to hold the zero terminator for the string. The value returned by strlen() does not include the zero terminator at the end of the string.