Re: malloc()/realloc() - have I got this right?

Joachim Schmitz wrote:

Antoninus Twink wrote:
On 30 May 2008 at 21:53, CBFalconer wrote:
Ridiculous. Most use of the function simply runs until a non-zero
is returned, after which the operation ends. It may be because of
EOF, or because of error. In either case, no further input is
available.

If you're in a restaurant and can't get your meal either because
they've run out of salmon or because the kitchen's on fire, you might
find it useful to be able to distinguish between those two error
conditions.
For some reason that is beound me you elected to ignore CBF's next
sentence, which addresses exaclty that:
If there is a need to distinguish EOF from errors, it
can be done at that point.

The debate was whether the caller or the callee should disambiguate
between end-of-file and error. IMHO doing it in the caller saves a
small amount of otherwise extra work in the calling code, which is
after all, the main purpose of library code. It's unclear from the
above sentence by CBFalconer whether he means the caller or the callee
when he says "at that point". One might assume from the general tone of
his reply and the use of the word "ridiculous" that he prefers this to
be done by the calling code. Either way is fine but I personally prefer
to have the line reading function do this low-level chore.

In you analogy: just ask the waiter for the reason or listen to the
fire alarm.

The analogy is flawed. The client (line reading function) has to report
the reason to someone else, (perhaps someone at his home). So should
the client ask the waiter for the reason and go home and report that,
or go home and simply say "the salmon was unavailable" and leave it to
that person to go to the restaurant and ask the waiter for the reason
why Salmon was not available?

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: malloc()/realloc() - have I got this right?
    ... For some reason that is beound me you elected to ignore CBF's next ... he prefers this to be done by the calling code. ... The client has to ... or go home and simply say "the salmon was unavailable" ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: malloc()/realloc() - have I got this right?
    ... For some reason that is beound me you elected to ignore CBF's next ... he prefers this to be done by the calling code. ... The client has to ... or go home and simply say "the salmon was unavailable" ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: malloc()/realloc() - have I got this right?
    ... For some reason that is beound me you elected to ignore CBF's next ... he prefers this to be done by the calling code. ... The client has to ... or go home and simply say "the salmon was unavailable" ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: malloc()/realloc() - have I got this right?
    ... For some reason that is beound me you elected to ignore CBF's next ... The debate was whether the caller or the callee should disambiguate ... this to be done by the calling code. ... The client has to ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: Young person gave me a good idea
    ... I ask for the reason I should deal with a>>>company ... I treat it as a game - if I can get the caller to ... somebody trying to sell me something, though, ... These robo-dialers can't read no call lists or anything else. ...
    (soc.retirement)
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