.\" Various rewrites and additions (notes on longjmp() and SIGSEGV).
.\" Weaken warning against use of alloca() (as per Debian bug 461100).
.\"
-.TH ALLOCA 3 2015-03-02 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
+.TH ALLOCA 3 2019-03-06 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
alloca \- allocate memory that is automatically freed
.SH SYNOPSIS
.TE
.SH CONFORMING TO
This function is not in POSIX.1.
-
+.PP
There is evidence that the
.BR alloca ()
function appeared in 32V, PWB, PWB.2, 3BSD, and 4BSD.
or
.BR siglongjmp (3).
Otherwise, its use is discouraged.
-
+.PP
Because the space allocated by
.BR alloca ()
is allocated within the stack frame,
.BR longjmp (3)
or
.BR siglongjmp (3).
-
+.PP
+The space allocated by
+.BR alloca ()
+is
+.I not
+automatically deallocated if the pointer that refers to it
+simply goes out of scope.
+.PP
Do not attempt to
.BR free (3)
space allocated by
includes
.I <alloca.h>
and that contains the lines:
-.nf
-
- #ifdef __GNUC__
- #define alloca(size) __builtin_alloca (size)
- #endif
-
-.fi
+.PP
+.in +4n
+.EX
+#ifdef __GNUC__
+#define alloca(size) __builtin_alloca (size)
+#endif
+.EE
+.in
+.PP
with messy consequences if one has a private version of this function.
-.LP
+.PP
The fact that the code is inlined means that it is impossible
to take the address of this function, or to change its behavior
by linking with a different library.
-.LP
+.PP
The inlined code often consists of a single instruction adjusting
the stack pointer, and does not check for stack overflow.
Thus, there is no NULL error return.
(However, after a failed allocation, the program is likely to receive a
.B SIGSEGV
signal if it attempts to access the unallocated space.)
-
+.PP
On many systems
.BR alloca ()
cannot be used inside the list of arguments of a function call, because