From 90b9f514581d671afcf66a59d4041e76f0a82cce Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Daniel Stenberg <daniel@haxx.se>
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2026 13:19:25 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] tool_operate: fix minor memory-leak on early error

When .curlrc is parsed successfully but the tool exits early before
parse_args() executes; the allocated path was not freed.

Spotted by Codex Security

Closes #20954
---
 src/tool_operate.c | 3 +--
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/tool_operate.c b/src/tool_operate.c
index 6c47c13631..fdb7e1052f 100644
--- a/src/tool_operate.c
+++ b/src/tool_operate.c
@@ -2296,7 +2296,6 @@ CURLcode operate(int argc, argv_item_t argv[])
     if(found_curlrc) {
       /* After parse_args so notef knows the verbosity */
       notef("Read config file from '%s'", curlrc_path);
-      curlx_free(curlrc_path);
     }
     if(err) {
       result = CURLE_OK;
@@ -2394,7 +2393,7 @@ CURLcode operate(int argc, argv_item_t argv[])
         errorf("out of memory");
     }
   }
-
+  curlx_free(curlrc_path);
   varcleanup();
 
   return result;