Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!meissner From: meissner@xyzzy.UUCP (Michael Meissner) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: alloca (was Re: Are yacc parsers portable ?) Message-ID: <1006@xyzzy.UUCP> Date: 11 Aug 88 19:28:25 GMT Article-I.D.: xyzzy.1006 References: <3950010@eecs.nwu.edu> <62170@sun.uucp> <62363@sun.uucp> <62412@sun.uucp> Reply-To: meissner@tiktok.UUCP (Michael Meissner) Organization: Data General (Languages @ Research Triangle Park, NC.) Lines: 17 In article <62412@sun.uucp> swilson@sun.UUCP (Scott Wilson) writes: | If alloca is such a wonderful function (and I'm NOT saying it isn't) | then why isn't it part of the ANSI draft proposed standard libraries | for C? Are you saying that a "self-respecting" C compiler/library | vendor will be doing users a disservice by providing only ANSI memory | routines (malloc, calloc, realloc, and free)? I would argue that it | is better to conform to a standard even with its shortcomings than | attempt to make something universal by "forcing" it on everyone. It was proposed to the ANSI committee, and it got shot down, for two reasons: 1) it was judged to be too late; 2) the systems don't have frame pointers on their stacks would have to recognize it as a builtin and support it through some method. -- Michael Meissner, Data General. Uucp: ...!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!meissner Arpa: meissner@dg-rtp.DG.COM (or) meissner%dg-rtp.DG.COM@relay.cs.net