Failure INSIDE malloc() ??

[Ashwini]

Hello Everyone, 

I'm having a problem with malloc routine. I have a large program,
so I may run out of memory (im using free wherever possible) 
but my program still crashes INSIDE malloc. Isnt this routine 
supposed to return a null pointer if it runs out of allocatable
memory? The program crashes at the following statement which is
inside malloc.(got by running through dbx).

movb $ffffffff, (r10)

I couldnt find anything in the faq list.
ANY help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Ashwini			jog at ecs.umass.edu