GNU Scientific Library – Reference Manual: Block allocation

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#### 8.2.1 Block allocation

The functions for allocating memory to a block follow the style of `malloc` and `free`. In addition they also perform their own error checking. If there is insufficient memory available to allocate a block then the functions call the GSL error handler (with an error number of `GSL_ENOMEM`) in addition to returning a null pointer. Thus if you use the library error handler to abort your program then it isn’t necessary to check every `alloc`.

Function: gsl_block * gsl_block_alloc (size_t n)

  This function allocates memory for a block of n double-precision elements, returning a pointer to the block struct. The block is not initialized and so the values of its elements are undefined. Use the function `gsl_block_calloc` if you want to ensure that all the elements are initialized to zero.

  A null pointer is returned if insufficient memory is available to create the block.

Function: gsl_block * gsl_block_calloc (size_t n)

  This function allocates memory for a block and initializes all the elements of the block to zero.

Function: void gsl_block_free (gsl_block * b)

  This function frees the memory used by a block b previously allocated with `gsl_block_alloc` or `gsl_block_calloc`.