This is one of those &quot;let&#x27;s ignore malloc failing&quot; bugs.  This is pretty common in C code and is, IMHO, a common  &quot;worse is better&quot;[1] anti-pattern, which is predicated on the &quot;worse is better&quot; principle that correctness can be sacrified if it makes things too complicated.  Many programmers, unfortunately,  don&#x27;t give a crap about things that far off the happy path, and when the language implements checked exceptions or Option types they get upset that it forces them to think about those distracting corner cases.  Such is the state of software engineering.<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Worse_is_better" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Worse_is_better</a>