alt Hacker NewsAt the end of main, if the count wasn't balanced, then you knew you had a mismatch between malloc()/free().
If malloc() had returned a real pointer, you'd have to free that too.
> wouldn’t it be better just to return NULL and guarantee that 0-sized allocations never use any memory at all?
Better: takes less memory Worse: blinds you to this portability issue.
> At the end of main, if the count wasn't balanced, then you knew you had a mismatch between malloc()/free().
A mismatch between malloc(0) and free(-1).
You’d know nothing about calls to malloc with non-zero sizes.