There are two differences. First, is in the number of arguments. Malloc() takes a single argument (memory required in bytes), while calloc() needs two arguments (number of variables to allocate memory, size in bytes of a single variable). Secondly, malloc() does not initialize the memory allocated, while calloc() initializes the allocated memory to ZERO.
Here are more opinions
* The difference between malloc and calloc are: 1. malloc() allocates byte of memory, whereas calloc()allocates block of memory.
* Calloc(m, n) is essentially equivalent to p = malloc(m * n); memset(p, 0, m * n); The zero fill is all-bits-zero, and does not therefore guarantee useful null pointer values (see section 5 of this list) or floating-point zero values. Free is properly used to free the memory allocated by calloc.
* Malloc(s); returns a pointer for enough storage for an object of s bytes. Calloc(n,s); returns a pointer for enough contiguous storage for n objects, each of s bytes. The storage is all initialized to zeros.
* Simply, malloc takes a single argument and allocates bytes of memory as per the argument taken during its invocation. Where as calloc takes two aguments, they are the number of variables to be created and the capacity of each vaiable (i.e. the bytes per variable).
* I think calloc can allocate and initialize memory, if the asked memory is available contiguously where as malloc can allocate even if the memory is not available contiguously but available at different locations.
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