_malloc_dbg is a debug version of the malloc function. When _DEBUG is not defined, each call to _malloc_dbg is reduced to a call to malloc. Both malloc and _malloc_dbg allocate a block of memory in the base heap, but _malloc_dbg offers several debugging features: buffers on either side of the user portion of the block to test for leaks, a block type parameter to track specific allocation types, and filename/linenumber information to determine the origin of allocation requests.
_malloc_dbg allocates the memory block with slightly more space than the requested size. The additional space is used by the debug heap manager to link the debug memory blocks and to provide the application with debug header information and overwrite buffers. When the block is allocated, the user portion of the block is filled with the value 0xCD and each of the overwrite buffers are filled with 0xFD.
In Visual C++ 2005, _malloc_dbg sets errno to ENOMEM if a memory allocation fails or if the amount of memory needed (including the overhead mentioned previously) exceeds _HEAP_MAXREQ. For information about this and other error codes, see errno, _doserrno, _sys_errlist, and _sys_nerr.
For information about how memory blocks are allocated, initialized, and managed in the debug version of the base heap, see Memory Management and the Debug Heap.
For information about the allocation block types and how they are used, see Types of Blocks on the Debug Heap.