Last modified: 19 May 2016
Name: H5free_memory
Signature:
  `herr_t H5free_memory(void *buf)`
Purpose:
  Frees memory allocated by the HDF5 Library.
Description:
  `H5free_memory` frees memory that has been allocated by the caller with `H5alloc_memory` or by the HDF5 Library on behalf of the caller.

  `H5Tget_member_name` provides an example of memory allocation on behalf of the caller: The function returns a buffer containing the name of a compound datatype member. It is the caller’s responsibility to eventually free that buffer with `H5free_memory`.

Notes:
  It is especially important to use this function to free memory allocated by the library on Windows. The C standard library is implemented in dynamic link libraries (DLLs) known as the C run-time (CRT). Each version of Visual Studio comes with two CRT DLLs (debug and release) and allocating and freeing across DLL boundaries can cause resource leaks and subtle bugs due to heap corruption.

  Only use this function to free memory allocated by the HDF5 Library. It will generally not be safe to use this function to free memory allocated by any other means.

  Even when using this function, it is still best to ensure that all components of a C application are built with the same version of Visual Studio and build (debug or release) and thus linked against the same CRT.

Parameters:

  `void *mem` | IN: Buffer to be freed. Can be `NULL`.

Returns:
  Returns a non-negative value if successful. Otherwise returns a negative value.
Fortran Interface:
  None
See Also:

  H5allocate_memory H5resize_memory Freeing Memory Allocated by the HDF5 Library in “Advanced Topics”. History:
  Release | Change
  1.8.13 | C function introduced with this release.