When to check the return value of malloc

Howdy,

I was reflecting recently on malloc.

Obviously, for tiny allocations like 20 bytes to strcpy a filename or
something, there's no point putting in a check on the return value of
malloc.

OTOH, if you're allocating a gigabyte for a large array, this might
fail, so you should definitely check for a NULL return.

So somewhere in between these extremes, there must be a point where you
stop ignoring malloc's return value, and start checking it.

Where do people draw this line? I guess it depends on the likely system
the program will be deployed on, but are there any good rule-of-thumbs?

Rgds,
MJ

.

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