Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 (MC840302); site mcvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!decvax!mcvax!guido From: guido@mcvax.UUCP (Guido van Rossum) Newsgroups: net.bugs.4bsd,net.unix-wizards Subject: Re: bug in realloc in 4.2 version of malloc (uninteresting comments) Message-ID: <5731@mcvax.UUCP> Date: Mon, 5-Mar-84 10:27:40 EST Article-I.D.: mcvax.5731 Posted: Mon Mar 5 10:27:40 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 7-Mar-84 08:09:34 EST References: <2327@allegra.UUCP> Organization: CWI, Amsterdam Lines: 12 I generally agree with your evaluation of 4.2 malloc. However I think it is not fair to blame the author for the fact that realloc_srchlen is initialized to 4 rather than -1. After all it is a global variable, so those programs which use memory compaction (there can't be many, given the obscure description of this feature in the V7 manual) can be fixed quite easily to set it to -1 at initialization time. Of course, the length of your article probably reflects the time you spent to find the bug -- maybe you had been better off when realloc returned (char*)NULL if it can't find the original pointer. This should be a minor change. Guido (oh, and change the manual page, too) van Rossum, CWI, Amsterdam guido @ mcvax