Why "SDL_iconv_string" use "malloc" without "free"

SDL Development
1

Dear all,
The API function “SDL_iconv_string” use a malloc as this:
string = SDL_malloc(stringsize);
This function is without a memory free operation and obviously cant do this because it returns the pointer malloced.
So I think this maybe a small bug. Isnt it?
Thanks…
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2

Hello !

  The API function "SDL_iconv_string"  use a malloc as this:
    string = SDL_malloc(stringsize);
 This function is without a memory free operation and obviously cant do this because it returns the pointer malloced.
  So I think this maybe a small bug. Isnt it?

No, why ? This is a design question. It would be possible to
either return a new malloced string or to copy the new string into
an existing one. SDL chooeses most of the time the first variant,
also for SDL_Surfaces for example.

CU

3 
  So I think this maybe a small bug. Isnt it?

No. The API documentation says the caller is required to call SDL_free()
on the returned value.

If you don’t want it to allocate memory, use SDL_iconv() instead of
SDL_iconv_string().

–ryan.