allocate(capacity:)

Declaration

static func allocate(capacity count: Int) -> UnsafeMutablePointer<Pointee>

Parameters

• count:

  The amount of memory to allocate, counted in instances of Pointee.

Discussion

The resulting pointer references a region of memory that is bound to Pointee and is count * MemoryLayout<Pointee>.stride bytes in size.

The following example allocates enough new memory to store four Int instances and then initializes that memory with the elements of a range.

let intPointer = UnsafeMutablePointer<Int>.allocate(capacity: 4)
for i in 0..<4 {
    (intPointer + i).initialize(to: i)
}
print(intPointer.pointee)
// Prints "0"

When you allocate memory, always remember to deallocate once you’re finished.

intPointer.deallocate()

You must only use deallocate() to end the lifetime of memory created with allocate(); it is a programming error to use free or another deallocation API, and may result in undefined behavior.