CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cmemorymemory-management
user6214276
user6214276

Reputation:

Freeing a structure containing void *

I came across this code implementing a queue

typedef struct Node {
    void        * data;
    struct Node * next;
} node_t;

the node is free'd in this way

static void freeNode(node_t *node) { free((void*)node); }

Why is the node casted to void *? Should't have been just free(node)?

And since I'm working on another structure :

typedef struct TaskNode {
  void (* fun)(void *);
  void * arg;
  struct Task * next;
} task_t;

Should I cast the pointer to the malloc'd structure to void * too before freeing it?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 45

Answers (2)

Deduplicator
Deduplicator

Reputation: 45654

You are quite correct that casting to void* is gratuitious. And as it doesn't clarify anything for fellow programmers either, it shouldn't be there.

Naturally, that's the case for both examples.

Upvotes: 1

Stargateur
Stargateur

Reputation: 26717

The cast is useless in this context, c auto-promote any pointer to void * in a lot of context(not for stdarg for exemple):

free((void*)node);

is equivalent to:

free(node);

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions