From: "Tom St Denis" <tomstdenis AT yahoo DOT com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
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Subject: Re: malloc() problem, DJDEV 203
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Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2001 01:16:40 GMT
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com


"DJ Delorie" <dj AT delorie DOT com> wrote in message
news:200107030106 DOT VAA05723 AT envy DOT delorie DOT com...
>
> > > No, there are far too many programs that expect malloc(0) to succeed,
> > > even if the standard allows it to fail.
> >
> > While I agree that seems practical it isn't "a good thing".
>
> Why?  The standard allows it to fail, but it also allows it to
> succeed.  Why shouldn't we return a usable pointer to a zero-length
> (well, 8 byte length) buffer?
>
> I'd rather djgpp not be on the list of systems that gratuitously cause
> problems for the user, when it's just as easy to do something useful
> instead.

Oh I didn't know it was allowed to return a pointer to 0-bytes.

Personally I would see that as a big nono, but who am I to say!

Tom