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Design and Analysis of Algorithms 214.: Introduction To The C Programming Language

This document discusses dynamic memory allocation in C programming. It explains that malloc is used to allocate memory on the heap that persists until freed. The quicksort algorithm is also summarized, which recursively partitions an array around a pivot element and sorts the subarrays. An exercise is given to modify a previous program to sort an array using quicksort.

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88 views12 pages

Design and Analysis of Algorithms 214.: Introduction To The C Programming Language

This document discusses dynamic memory allocation in C programming. It explains that malloc is used to allocate memory on the heap that persists until freed. The quicksort algorithm is also summarized, which recursively partitions an array around a pivot element and sorts the subarrays. An exercise is given to modify a previous program to sort an array using quicksort.

Uploaded by

Gamindu Udayanga
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Design and Analysis of Algorithms 214.

Introduction to the C Programming Language.

Dynamic Memory Allocation, Quick sort


Algorithm.

U.U.Samantha Rajapaksha
B.Sc.(Eng.)

Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.


[email protected]
0112301904

DAA 214 Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.


Dynamic memory allocation
 In computer science, dynamic memory allocation is the allocation of
memory storage for use in a computer program during the runtime of
that program.
 It is a way of distributing ownership of limited memory resources
among many pieces of data and code.
 Importantly, the amount of memory allocated is determined by the
program at the time of allocation and need not be known in advance.
A dynamic allocation exists until it is explicitly released, either by the
programmer or by a garbage collector; this is notably different from
automatic and static memory allocation, which require advance
knowledge of the required amount of memory and have a fixed
duration.

DAA 214 Lab 02 Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.


malloc
 In computing, malloc is a subroutine provided in the
C programming language's and C++ programming
language's standard library for performing dynamic
memory allocation.

DAA 214 Lab 02 Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.


Process in Memory
Command-line arguments and environment variables argc, argv, environment

stack activation records for funct

heap malloc family

Uninitialized static data


Initialized static data
Program text

DAA 214 Lab 02 Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.


Dynamic memory allocation
 Up to now, any variables, including pointers, that we’ve created
have been static:
 They exist only while the module in which they’ve been

created is still executing


 They disappear automatically upon exit from the module

 We can create entities such as ints, chars, arrays and

complex data structures that will persist beyond exit from the
module that built them.
 Dynamically allocated variables are created an area of

memory known as the heap.


 Heap memory is only accessible through pointers.

DAA 214 Lab 02 Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.


Dynamic memory allocation in C
 The malloc function is the basic function used to allocate
memory on the heap in C.
 Requires the use of pointer variables, and of one of the memory
allocation functions from <stdlib.h>

 malloc: the most commonly used memory allocation function

void * malloc( size_t size );

 Locates size consecutive bytes of free memory (memory that


is not currently in use) in the heap, and returns a generic
pointer to the block of memory
 Returns NULL instead if size bytes can’t be found

DAA 214 Lab 02 Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.


Dynamic memory allocation in C
 malloc returns a void pointer (void *), which indicates that it is a
pointer to a region of unknown data type.
 Value returned by malloc is a generic pointer, and must be cast
to the specific type of pointer the user intended to create

int * a;
a = (int *) (malloc( sizeof( int ) ) );

DAA 214 Lab 02 Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.


Dynamic memory allocation in C
 Memory allocated via malloc is persistent: it will continue to exist
until the program terminates or the memory is explicitly
deallocated by the programmer (that is, the block is said to be
"freed"). This is achieved by use of the free function.
 Programmer is responsible for recycling any dynamically
allocated memory that is no longer needed
 Must use the free( ) function from <stdlib.h>

DAA 214 Lab 02 Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.


DAA 214 Lab 02 Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.
DAA 214 Lab 02 Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.
Exercise.
 Modify the previous program (Exercise 06) with quick
sort algorithm to sort the elements of the array.

Procedure QUICKSORT (A,p,r)


1 if p < r
2 then q ← PARTITION(A,p,r)
3 QUICKSORT (A,p,q-1)
4 QUICKSORT (A,q+1,r)

DAA 214 Lab 02 Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.


PARTITION(A, p, r)

1 x ← A[r]
2i←p-1
3 for j ← p to r - 1
4 do if A[j] ≤ x
5 then i ← i + 1
6 exchange A[i] ↔ A[j]
7 exchange A[i + 1] ↔ A[r]
8 return i + 1

DAA 214 Lab 02 Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.

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