FREE statement
The FREE statement releases dynamic storage that was previously obtained with an ALLOCATE statement.
- data-name-1
Must be defined as USAGE IS POINTER.
Can be qualified or subscripted.
The FREE statement is processed as follows:
- If the pointer referenced by data-name-1 identifies the start of storage that is currently allocated by an ALLOCATE statement, that storage is released and the pointer referenced by data-name-1 is set to NULL, the length of the released storage is the length of the storage obtained by the ALLOCATE statement, and the contents of any data items located within the released storage area become undefined.
- If the pointer referenced by data-name-1 contains the predefined address NULL or the address of storage that is not acquired by the ALLOCATE statement, no storage will be freed. The pointer data-name-1 will be kept unchanged and the behavior is undefined.
If more than one data-name-1 is specified in a FREE statement, the result of executing this FREE statement is the same as if a separate FREE statement had been written for each data-name-1 in the same order as specified in the FREE statement.
