> What makes you think that the program is going to exit anytime soon?

Because freeing memory in multiple exit paths of a short-running program is the definition of the problem he's trying to solve. Read what I posted before you waste everyone's time with another ego-based response where you don't admit you missed that important detail.

I'm well aware of what arenas are and they're an excellent tool for a lot of situations, maybe even most situations, but this isn't one of those situations.

Also be sure to let the authors of grep know their program used by millions of people is a toy program.