ENTMF 

The FREE Statement

The FREE statement frees up dynamic storage that was previously allocated by an ALLOCATE statement.

General Format

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General Rules

  1. If data-name-1 identifies the start of storage currently allocated by an ALLOCATE statement, the storage is released and data-name-1 set to NULL.
  2. The length of the released storage is the same as the length allocated using the ALLOCATE statement, and so the contents of any data items within the storage become undefined.
  3. If data-name-1 contains a predefined address of NULL or an address of storage not allocated via the ALLOCATE statement, no storage is freed. The pointer data-name-1 will be kept unchanged, and behavior is undefined.
  4. If more than one data-name-1 is specified in a single statement, the effect is as if individual FREE statements were entered, in the order in which the data-name-1 pointers are specified.

Syntax Rules

  1. data-name-1 must be defined as USAGE IS POINTER.
  2. data-name-1 can be qualified or subscripted.
Parent topic: Statements
Related reference
The ALLOCATE Statement