Semantic difference of "Malloc" and Calloc"

Question

I was in programming class with C and I got the doubt about the difference between Malloc and Calloc, but not in what each one does, but in the meaning of "M" and "C".

I know that Malloc comes from memory allocation, already the Calloc I have no idea.

Answer 1

The name calloc() is certainly an abbreviation of clear-allocation, equator malloc() comes from memory-allocation.

However, the dynamic allocation functions of the standard library stdlib.h have different behaviors:

1. calloc() initializes the memory allocated with "zeros";
2. malloc() does not initialize the allocated memory.

Follow a possible implementation of calloc(), which is basically the combination of functions malloc() and memset():

void * calloc( size_t nmemb, size_t size )
{
    size_t len = size * nmemb;
    void * p = malloc( len );
    memset( p, 0, len );
    return p;
}

Answer 2

If you do a search, you will find that there is no right answer for the calloc case. The malloc "m" comes from memory allocation. The "c" of the calloc is a divided question.

According to this book Linux System Programming there is no official source defining the meaning of calloc.

But out of curiosity some people believe that the "c" comes from the word in English clear which means clean. This is because calloc ensures that the piece of memory returned comes clean and initialized with zero.

I hope I’ve helped.