Allocating memory within an oct-file might seem easy, as the C++ new/delete operators can be used. However, in that case great care must be taken to avoid memory leaks. The preferred manner in which to allocate memory for use locally is to use the OCTAVE_LOCAL_BUFFER macro. An example of its use is
OCTAVE_LOCAL_BUFFER (double, tmp, len)
that returns a pointer tmp of type double * of length len.
In this case, Octave itself will worry about reference counting and variable scope and will properly free memory without programmer intervention.
© 1996–2018 John W. Eaton
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https://octave.org/doc/interpreter/Allocating-Local-Memory-in-Oct_002dFiles.html