I don't understand pointers in dynamic memory allocation

Memory dynamically allocated using malloc is done like this:

int *ptr=(int*)(malloc(sizeof(int)))

I don’t understand why pointer is used before malloc in (int*) and why we have another pointer with int *ptr.

I am sorry to put up this basic question here and bother people here with this one. But I am not clear after googling this and need help.

Thank You.

>Solution :

1. malloc allocates space for an int using sizeof(int).

2. malloc returns a pointer, which is converted to int * using (int*).

3. Finally, it assigns that pointer to ptr, which could also be written as

   int* ptr =

4. Now ptr has the value from malloc.

There is no difference in

int *ptr=(int*)(malloc(sizeof(int)));

and

int* ptr=(int*)(malloc(sizeof(int)));

but in my opinion, the second one is clearer, because it has the same notation as the cast.

As the commenter said, it can be simplified to:

int* ptr=malloc(sizeof(int));

which, to me, is the clearest and simplest of all. Hope this helps!