preferring malloc over calloc [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
c difference between malloc and calloc

Is there any situation where you would prefer malloc over calloc. i know both malloc and calloc allocate memory dynamically and that calloc also initializes all bits in alloted memory to zero. From this i would guess its always better to use calloc over malloc. Or is there some situations where malloc is better? Performance may be?

Answer 1

If you need the dynamically allocated memory to be zero-initialized then use calloc.

If you don't need the dynamically allocated memory to be zero-initialized, then use malloc.

You don't always need zero-initialized memory; if you don't need the memory zero-initialized, don't pay the cost of initializing it. For example, if you allocate memory and then immediately copy data to fill the allocated memory, there's no reason whatsoever to perform zero-initialization.

calloc and malloc are functions that do different things: use whichever one is most appropriate for the task you need to accomplish.

Answer 2

Relying on calloc's zero-initialisation can be dangerous if you're not careful. Zeroing memory gives 0 for integral types and \0 for char types as expected. But it doesn't necessarily correspond to float/double 0 or NULL pointers.