I've been using C on some projects for a master's degree but have never built production software with it. (.NET & Javascript are my bread and butter.) Obviously, the need to free() memory that you malloc() is critical in C. This is fine, well and good if you can do both in one routine. But as programs grow, and structs deepen, keeping track of what's been malloc'd where and what's appropriate to free gets harder and harder.
I've looked around on the interwebs and only found a few generic recommendations for this. What I suspect is that some of you long-time C coders have come up with your own patterns and practices to simplify this process and keep the evil in front of you.
So: how do you recommend structuring your C programs to keep dynamic allocations from becoming memory leaks?