Knowee
Questions
Features
Study Tools

In which case does a pointer become a dangling pointer?

Question

In which case does a pointer become a dangling pointer?

🧐 Not the exact question you are looking for?Go ask a question

Solution

A pointer becomes a dangling pointer in the following cases:

  1. De-allocation of memory: If the memory location pointed to by the pointer is freed or de-allocated and the pointer is not updated, it becomes a dangling pointer. This is because it is still pointing to a memory location that is no longer valid.

  2. Function Call: A pointer becomes a dangling pointer when it points to some non-static local start variable of a function and the function call gets over.

  3. Variable goes out of scope: If a pointer is pointing to a local variable and the local variable goes out of scope, the pointer becomes a dangling pointer. This is because the memory location the pointer is pointing to is automatically freed when the variable goes out of scope.

In all these cases, if the dangling pointer is used to access or manipulate data, it can lead to undefined behavior and potential program crashes. Therefore, it's important to always properly manage memory in programs to avoid the creation of dangling pointers.

This problem has been solved

Similar Questions

Which of the following statements about dangling pointers is true?

In which case does a pointer become a dangling pointer?Marks : 1Negative Marks : 0Answer hereWhen it is declaredWhen it is used to allocate memoryWhen the memory it points to is reallocatedWhen the memory it points to is deallocatedClearNext

Which of the following scenarios can lead to a dangling pointer?Marks : 1Negative Marks : 0Answer hereReturning a pointer to a local variable from a functionUsing malloc() for memory allocationAssigning a pointer to another pointerDeclaring a pointer inside main()

Which of the following is not a consequence of using a dangling pointer?Marks : 1Negative Marks : 0Answer hereMemory leakSystem crashSegmentation faultNone of the mentioned options

What is the result of dereferencing a dangling pointer?Marks : 1Negative Marks : 0Answer hereThe program crashes.The pointer is set to NULL.The value at the memory location it points to.A compilation error.

1/3

Upgrade your grade with Knowee

Get personalized homework help. Review tough concepts in more detail, or go deeper into your topic by exploring other relevant questions.