Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Variable dimensioning in fortran (now in C)
Message-ID: <8168@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 27 Jun 88 03:24:24 GMT
References: <2742@utastro.UUCP> <20008@beta.UUCP> <224@raunvis.UUCP> <517@philmds.UUCP> <749@naucse.UUCP> <527@philmds.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) )
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 14

In article <527@philmds.UUCP> leo@philmds.UUCP (L.J.M. de Wit) writes:
>In article <749@naucse.UUCP> rrr@naucse.UUCP (Bob Rose ) writes:
>>In article <517@philmds.UUCP>, leo@philmds.UUCP (Leo de Wit) writes:
>>> [my example using calloc() deleted]
>>Close, but ...  I assume you are using calloc to zero the array, but
>>the whole world is not a VAX. Try:
>What makes you think calloc() is VAX-specific?

It's true that calloc() exists universally, but its function is to allocate
memory and initialize it with 0 BYTE data.  That does not in general
properly initialize all data types (particularly floating-point and
pointer types), thus the necessity of malloc() followed by an explicit
initialization loop.  On a VAX this use of calloc() typically happens to
work, by accident.