How to check if memory has been initialized?

Question

Is there a way of checking if memory pointed to by pointer has been initialized?(not necessarily by my program).
Thanks

What's your test for "initialized"? All zeroes? – S.Lott Mar 31 '10 at 15:41 — S.Lott, Mar 31 '10 at 15:41

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 31 '10 at 15:29

7

No.

Uninitialized memory can contain anything, including bytes that make it look like it has been initialized.

answered Mar 31 '10 at 15:29

James McNellis

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 31 '10 at 15:30

1

The only way would be to define a "not initialized value", such as 0x0 (just because), and use that inside your application, setting all the memory you ask for with that value.

In general, no, not possible.

answered Mar 31 '10 at 15:30

Tom

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 31 '10 at 15:28

0

By "initialized" you probably mean "allocated". In any case: no, it isn't possible.

If the pointer is NULL, you can say it wasn't initialized for sure, however :-)

answered Mar 31 '10 at 15:28

Eli Bendersky

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 31 '10 at 15:29

Not really. You might be able to do something low-level and OS-specific, like see if touching the memory generates a page fault, but I can't believe that anyone would seriously contemplate doing something like this when there must be a better overall solution.

How to check if memory has been initialized?

4 Answers4