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The following is an assignment statement in the current version of
analyze_trades:
trade_pointers[limit] = (struct trade*) malloc (sizeof (struct trade));
To prevent the memory leak, you use
the free function before you
reassign a pointer and lose your access to the memory you want to reclaim.
You can, for example, deploy the
free function just before
the allocation of new objects:
... free (trade_pointers[limit]); trade_pointers[limit] = (struct trade*) malloc (sizeof (struct trade)); ...
So situated, the free function reclaims memory previously allocated
by the corresponding malloc. Once reclaimed, memory automatically
becomes available for subsequent applications of malloc.
The first time that analyze_trades is called, the
trade_pointers array contains pointers to 0, because the elements of
global arrays are initialized to 0 by the C compiler. Fortunately,
free does nothing when its argument is 0.