Re: g_list_free()

["Brian J. Tarricone" <bjt23 cornell edu>]

Maulet wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Just wanted to know if g_list_free() frees the memory allocated "by 
> hand" and attached to the list nodes.
> For example:
>
> ---[ start code ]---
>
> GList *list = NULL;
> typedef struct {
>    gchar *name;
>    gint age;
> } Person *bush;
>
> bush->name = g_strdup ("George");
> bush->age = 8;
>
> list = g_list_append (list, (gpointer) bush);
> g_list_free (list);
> list = NULL;
>
> ---[ end code ]---
>
> Is this a memory leak? In other words: does the above g_list_free() 
> free the string allocated in bush->name ?

yep, that's a leak.  how would g_list_free() know the layout of your 
struct?  you should do something like:

g_list_foreach(list, struct_person_free, NULL);
g_list_free(list);

where struct_person_free() is a function that you need to write that 
takes a Person* and frees any data inside it, as well as the struct 
itself.  see the glib API docs for the proper signature for the 
function, though i believe the first argument passed is the list data 
pointer (and thus, in your case, the Person* pointer).

   -brian

p.s. note that also you didn't allocate memory for the struct 'bush' 
itself, so that would give you a segfault.  i don't think your typedef 
line is valid either, but i dunno.  you can do some weird stuff in C 
sometimes.