libghostty: add ghostty_free for cross-runtime memory safety

On Windows, Zig's built-in libc and MSVC's CRT maintain separate
heaps, so calling free() on memory allocated by the library causes
undefined behavior. Add ghostty_free() that frees through the same
allocator that performed the allocation, making it safe on all
platforms.

Update format_alloc docs and all examples to use ghostty_free()
instead of free().

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Alessandro De Blasis
2026-03-23 16:54:05 +01:00
parent 1213dacd5b
commit c1e616c6cd
7 changed files with 50 additions and 7 deletions

View File

@@ -191,6 +191,31 @@ typedef struct GhosttyAllocator {
const GhosttyAllocatorVtable *vtable;
} GhosttyAllocator;
/**
* Free memory that was allocated by a libghostty-vt function.
*
* Use this to free buffers returned by functions such as
* ghostty_formatter_format_alloc(). Pass the same allocator that was
* used for the allocation, or NULL if the default allocator was used.
*
* On platforms where the library's internal allocator differs from the
* consumer's C runtime (e.g. Windows, where Zig's libc and MSVC's CRT
* maintain separate heaps), calling the standard C free() on memory
* allocated by the library causes undefined behavior. This function
* guarantees the correct allocator is used regardless of platform.
*
* It is safe to pass a NULL pointer; the call is a no-op in that case.
*
* @param allocator Pointer to the allocator that was used to allocate the
* memory, or NULL if the default allocator was used
* @param ptr Pointer to the memory to free (may be NULL)
* @param len Length of the allocation in bytes (must match the original
* allocation size)
*
* @ingroup allocator
*/
void ghostty_free(const GhosttyAllocator* allocator, uint8_t* ptr, size_t len);
/** @} */
#endif /* GHOSTTY_VT_ALLOCATOR_H */

View File

@@ -186,10 +186,9 @@ GhosttyResult ghostty_formatter_format_buf(GhosttyFormatter formatter,
*
* Each call formats the current terminal state. The buffer is allocated
* using the provided allocator (or the default allocator if NULL).
* The caller is responsible for freeing the returned buffer. When using
* the default allocator (NULL), the buffer can be freed with `free()`.
* When using a custom allocator, the buffer must be freed using the
* same allocator.
* The caller is responsible for freeing the returned buffer with
* ghostty_free(), passing the same allocator (or NULL for the default)
* that was used for the allocation.
*
* @param formatter The formatter handle (must not be NULL)
* @param allocator Pointer to allocator, or NULL to use the default allocator