After some painful experiences, I understand the problem of dangling pointers and double free. I am seeking proper solutions. aStruct has a number of fields including other arrays. aStruct *A=NULL, *B = NULL; A = (aStruct*) calloc(1, sizeof(sStruct)); B = A; free_aStruct(A); ... //bunch of other code in various places. ... free_aStruct(B); Is there any way to write free_aStruct(X) so that free_aStruct(B) exists gracefully?? void free_aStruct(aStruct *X){ if (X ! = NULL){ if (X->a != NULL){free(X->a); x->a = NULL;} free(X); X = NULL; } } Doing above only sets A = NULL when free_aStruct(A); is called. B is now dangling. How can this situation be avoided / remedied? Is reference counting the only viable solution? or, are there other "defensive" free approaches, to prevent free_aStruct(B); from exploding? Thanks, Russ