8.161 MALLOC — Allocate dynamic memory

Description:

MALLOC(SIZE) allocates SIZE bytes of dynamic memory and returns the address of the allocated memory. The MALLOC intrinsic is an extension intended to be used with Cray pointers, and is provided in GNU Fortran to allow the user to compile legacy code. For new code using Fortran 95 pointers, the memory allocation intrinsic is ALLOCATE.

Standard:

GNU extension

Class:

Function

Syntax:

PTR = MALLOC(SIZE)

Arguments:

SIZE	The type shall be INTEGER.

Return value:

The return value is of type INTEGER(K), with K such that variables of type INTEGER(K) have the same size as C pointers (sizeof(void *)).

Example:

The following example demonstrates the use of MALLOC and FREE with Cray pointers.

          program test_malloc
            implicit none
            integer i
            real*8 x(*), z
            pointer(ptr_x,x)
          
            ptr_x = malloc(20*8)
            do i = 1, 20
              x(i) = sqrt(1.0d0 / i)
            end do
            z = 0
            do i = 1, 20
              z = z + x(i)
              print *, z
            end do
            call free(ptr_x)
          end program test_malloc

See also:

FREE