Why does the compiler complain when I do not cast the result of malloc?

Question

I am inspecting code that does not require explicitly casting result of malloc call but whenever I attempt to do this, the compiler throws an error.

ie

char *somevar;
somevar = malloc(sizeof(char) * n); //error
somevar = (char *)malloc(sizeof(char) * n); // ok

Answer 1

This happens if you use C++ compiler instead of C compiler. As C++ requires explicit casting. The problem is not just with (un)casting malloc result, but any void pointer to other pointer.

Answer 2

Did you remember to include the function prototype? For malloc(3), this is:

#include <stdlib.h>