Function

GLibPtrArraysteal

since: 2.64

Declaration

gpointer*
g_ptr_array_steal (
  GPtrArray* array,
  gsize* len
)

Description

Frees the data in the array and resets the size to zero, while the underlying array is preserved for use elsewhere and returned to the caller.

Note that if the array is NULL terminated this may still return NULL if the length of the array was zero and pdata was not yet allocated.

Even if set, the GDestroyNotify function will never be called on the current contents of the array and the caller is responsible for freeing the array elements.

An example of use:

g_autoptr(GPtrArray) chunk_buffer = g_ptr_array_new_with_free_func (g_bytes_unref);

// Some part of your application appends a number of chunks to the pointer array.
g_ptr_array_add (chunk_buffer, g_bytes_new_static ("hello", 5));
g_ptr_array_add (chunk_buffer, g_bytes_new_static ("world", 5));

…

// Periodically, the chunks need to be sent as an array-and-length to some
// other part of the program.
GBytes **chunks;
gsize n_chunks;

chunks = g_ptr_array_steal (chunk_buffer, &n_chunks);
for (gsize i = 0; i < n_chunks; i++)
  {
    // Do something with each chunk here, and then free them, since
    // `g_ptr_array_steal()` transfers ownership of all the elements and the
    // array to the caller.
    …

    g_bytes_unref (chunks[i]);
  }

g_free (chunks);

// After calling g_ptr_array_steal(), the pointer array can be reused for the
// next set of chunks.
g_assert (chunk_buffer->len == 0);

Available since: 2.64

This function is not directly available to language bindings.

Parameters

array

Type: An array of gpointer

A GPtrArray.

The data is owned by the caller of the function.

len

Type: gsize*

Pointer to retrieve the number of elements of the original array.

The argument will be set by the function.

The argument can be NULL.

Return value

Type: gpointer*

The element data, which should be freed using g_free(). This may be NULL if the array doesn’t have any elements (i.e. if *len is zero).

The caller of the function takes ownership of the data, and is responsible for freeing it.

The return value can be NULL.