How would I free these mallocs?

Question

I have this function to allocate memory to a matrix:

double **mmalloc(int r, int c){
    double **matrix = (double **)malloc((r)*sizeof(double*));
    for (int y = 0; y < r; y++){
        matrix[y] = (double *)malloc(c*sizeof(double));
    }

    for (int y = 0; y < r; y++){
        for(int x = 0; x < c; x++){
            matrix[y][x] = 0;
        }
    }
    return matrix;
}

How would I free all the memory of the returned matrix? I have this function to free the matrix... I can free the rows of the matrix but I cant free the columns.

Here's the freeing function:

// Free all memory allocated for A 
void mfree(int r, int c, double **A){
    for (int y = 0; y < r; y++){
        free(A[y]);
    }
}

Answer 1

You need to free all rows one by one, then the initially allocated column (that contains all rows)

void xfree(int r, int c, double **A){
    for (int y = 0; y < r; y++){
        free(A[y]);
    }
    free (A);
}

in this order.

double ** (Initial allocation)
  ↓
(double *)row0 → col0 col1 ...
(double *)row1 → col0 col1 ...
...

where each rowi is made of (double) columns.

In order to completely free a dynamically allocated array of arrays, keep these rules in mind

• the number of frees has to equal the number of mallocs that was used to allocate the array and its arrays

• consider that if something is freed it is not usable anymore, even if it may work by chance (the behavior that follows such action is said Undefined Behavior). For example, if you free(A) first, you shouldn't free(A[i]) since A - a memory space that contains a list of pointers - is not supposed to be allocated/usable anymore.

• therefore free first the innermost elements ("contained", eg A[i]) then free the "containers" (eg A).