How does C free() work?

Posted by slee on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by slee
Published on 2011-01-16T05:53:01Z Indexed on 2011/01/16 10:53 UTC
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#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int * alloc()
{
    int *p = (int *)calloc(5,4);
    printf("%d\n",p);
    return p;
}

int main()
{
 int *p = alloc();

 free(p);
 printf("%d\n",p);
 p[0] = 1;
 p[1] = 2;
 printf("%d %d\n",p[0],p[1]);
}

As to the code segment, I allocate 5 ints,first. And then I free the memory. When I printf p, why does p sill have a value same to the memory address allocated first? And I also can assign value to p[0] and p[1]. Does this mean free() do nothing? Once I allocate memory, I can use later though I have freed it.

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