GATE CS 2017 Set 2 Q2 — Programming in C

We can match each C programming construct to its corresponding description as follows:

• P. static char var; → ii. A variable located in data section of memory
  Static variables in C have static storage duration. They are allocated in the data segment (specifically, uninitialized static variables are placed in the BSS segment, which is a part of the data section) and persist for the entire lifetime of the program.


• Q. m = malloc(10); m = NULL; → iv. A lost memory which cannot be freed
  Memory is dynamically allocated on the heap using malloc. By reassigning the pointer m to NULL without first calling free(m), the address of the allocated block is lost. This causes a memory leak, as the allocated memory can no longer be accessed or deallocated.


• R. char *ptr[10]; → i. Sequence of memory locations to store addresses
  This defines an array of 10 pointers to char. Since pointers store memory addresses, this array represents a contiguous sequence of memory locations designed to store addresses.


• S. register int varl; → iii. Request to allocate a CPU register to store data
  The register storage class specifier is a hint/request to the compiler to store the variable in a CPU register rather than in RAM, to enable faster access.

Thus, the correct matching is:
P → ii, Q → iv, R → i, S → iii, which corresponds to Option A.