What does it mean: “A memory leak is occurring.”?

Question

What is the problem with the following code?
int *p = (int*) malloc(sizeof(int));
p = NULL;
free(p);

Answer 1

Memory leaks generally occur when an allocated memory is never deallocated.

In this case the pointer is allocated a memory of 4 bytes but in the very next line you assign it to NULL. So the allocated memory is never returned because in the free(p), p is not pointing to the memory allocated anymore. So there is leak or wastage of memory.

Answer 2

Avinesh ok thanks for the clarification 🙋

Answer 3

Avinesh, yes - memory loss sounds much better than a leak.
A leak in my opinion implies a partial loss, that is, there were 4 bytes, and there became 2 bytes

Answer 4

coffeeunderrun thanks for the help, this is an example from the challenge.

Answer 5

Vasiliy it is because of the same reason it is called a memory leak. A memory which you don't have access to anymore, something that is never to return.