According to POSIX specs, putenv is inevitably subject to leaks because it must add the passed string to environ w/o making a copy. This way, it's never known when it's safe to free it even if it's known it was allocated on the heap. So, this is "by design" and will be like that forever until the standard changes which is unlikely — the standard deprecates putenv by recommending to use setenv instead.
However, setenv is allowed to make copies of its arguments so such memory may be properly released when a variable is deleted overwritten with a different value. This ticket is to implement such a behavior. It may save memory for applications that call setenv/unsetenv too often. There shouldn't be many apps like this so this task has a low priority.
A new implementation may track a shadow array with flags for each environment variable indicating if it was set by setenv and may be freed when overwritten etc. The new implementation may also speed up getenv operation considerably by using a hash map as a shadow array for environ.
According to POSIX specs,
putenvis inevitably subject to leaks because it must add the passed string toenvironw/o making a copy. This way, it's never known when it's safe to free it even if it's known it was allocated on the heap. So, this is "by design" and will be like that forever until the standard changes which is unlikely — the standard deprecatesputenvby recommending to usesetenvinstead.However,
setenvis allowed to make copies of its arguments so such memory may be properly released when a variable is deleted overwritten with a different value. This ticket is to implement such a behavior. It may save memory for applications that callsetenv/unsetenvtoo often. There shouldn't be many apps like this so this task has a low priority.A new implementation may track a shadow array with flags for each environment variable indicating if it was set by
setenvand may be freed when overwritten etc. The new implementation may also speed upgetenvoperation considerably by using a hash map as a shadow array forenviron.See also getenv specs.