Dangling Pointer and Wild Pointer in C

In this tutorial, you are going to learn about Dangling Pointer and Wild Pointer in C.

Dangling Pointer

A Dangling Pointer is a pointer which points to some non existing memory location.

Example:

#include <stdio.h>
int* fun()
{
    int num=10;
    return &num;
}
int main()
{
    int *ptr= NULL;
    ptr= fun();
    printf("%d", *ptr);
    return 0;
}

Wild Pointer

Wild Pointers are also known as uninitialized pointers. These pointers usually point to some arbitrary memory location and may cause a program to crash or misbehave.

Example:

int main()
{
    int *p; //This a wild pointer.
    *p = 10;
    return 0;
}

How to Avoid Wild Pointers

1. Initialize them with the address of a known variable.

Example:

  int main()
  {
    int var= 10;
    int *p;
    p= &var; //No more a wild pointer.
    return 0;
  }  

2. Explicitly allocate the memory and put the values in the values in the allocated memory.

Example:

  int main()
  {
    int *p= (int *)malloc(sizeof(int));
    *p= 10;
    free(p);
    return 0;
  }  

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This article on Dangling Pointer and Wild Pointer in C is contributed by Rajnish Kumar. If you like TheCode11, then do follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.