Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 18:38:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Thomas David Rivers <rivers@dignus.com> To: dag-erli@ifi.uio.no, nate@mt.sri.com Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, imp@village.org Subject: Re: Realloc fix for review Message-ID: <199808202238.SAA00904@lakes.dignus.com> In-Reply-To: <199808201943.NAA07889@mt.sri.com>
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> > > > Recently, OpenBSD went through their source tree and fixed all > > > instances of > > > a = realloc(a, size); > > > with > > > na = realloc(a, size); > > > if (!na) > > > free(a); > > > a = na; > > > > Is that really a good idea? If you free the old block when realloc() > > fails, you lose whatever data was in it (and therefore potentially > > lose the ability to generate a sensible error message or recover > > gracefully). > > Umm, reread the code again. His realloc frees the old block when > realloc *succeeds*, not fails. Is that valid - for example, realloc is free to return the same pointer if all it needs to do is 'extend' the memory descriptor in some way... I know of realloc() implementations that do that. - Dave Rivers - To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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