Re: Am I programming correctly with array parameter?

From: Alwyn (dt015a1979_at_mac.com.invalid)
Date: 08/29/04 

Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 15:07:18 +0100

In article <kZiG4$LUXdMBFwqT@robinton.demon.co.uk>, Francis Glassborow
<francis@robinton.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> In article <290820041223102174%dt015a1979@mac.com.invalid>, Alwyn
> <dt015a1979@mac.com.invalid> writes
>
> >But there are cases where allocating memory within a function and
> >depending on the user to free it is unavoidable. Such cases must be
> >clearly and prominently documented, of course.
>
> I have no argument with that, but newcomers to the language probably
> lack the experience to identify those cases,

Here's one such case, which any beginner can understand, in my humble
opinion:

Standard C does not provide the POSIX 'strdup' function, perhaps for
the reason that the user needs to do the work of 'cleaning up' after
it. However, the fact remains that duplicating a string is something
one often has to do. So we can write our own:

char *dupstr(const char *source)
{
   char *dest = malloc(strlen(source)+1);
   if (dest != NULL)
      strcpy(dest, source);
   return dest;
}

> and simple emulating idioms
> they have used in other languages will hinder their progress.

Yes, of course, though it's not clear to me that this is what the OP
was doing in this instance. I believe he was just practising his newly
acquired ability to manipulate pointers.

Alwyn

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