garraynew

garraynew is a constructor used to allocate and initialize a dynamic array in the GLib library’s GArray data structure. It creates a new GArray that stores elements of a user-specified size and is commonly used when a program needs a growable, typed array. In GLib sources, the function is named g_array_new; some bindings or informal references call it garraynew.

Signature: GArray* g_array_new(gboolean zero_terminated, gboolean clear, guint element_size). The parameters are described as follows: zero_terminated indicates whether a trailing terminator element should be maintained in the array; clear, when TRUE, initializes new memory to zero; element_size specifies the size, in bytes, of each array element.

Behavior: The function allocates the array structure and the internal storage for the given element size. If zero_terminated is TRUE, the array reserves space for and maintains a terminator element (such as NULL for pointer arrays or 0 for numeric elements). If clear is TRUE, newly allocated elements are zeroed. This function creates a brand-new array and does not modify existing data.

Return value and memory management: On success, g_array_new returns a pointer to a new GArray; on failure, it returns NULL. The caller is responsible for freeing resources when the array is no longer needed, typically with g_array_free, passing a boolean to indicate whether to free the underlying data as well.

See also: GArray, g_array_free, g_array_append_val, and related GArray utilities. These functions form the typical workflow for managing dynamic, type-specific arrays in GLib-based code.