Any good idioms for error handling in straight C programs?

If you have resources that need to be released at the end, then sometimes the old trusty goto can be handy!

int
major_func(size_t len)
{
    int err;
    char *buf;

    buf = malloc(len);

    if (err = minor_func1(buf))
        goto major_func_end;
    if (err = minor_func2(buf))
        goto major_func_end;
    if (err = minor_func3(buf))
        goto major_func_end;

major_func_end:
    free(buf);
    return err;
}