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From: idall@augean.OZ (Ian Dall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: effect of free()
Message-ID: <600@augean.OZ>
Date: 26 Sep 89 04:06:48 GMT
References: <319@cubmol.BIO.COLUMBIA.EDU> <3756@buengc.BU.EDU> <1989Aug17.005548.745@twwells.com> <16022@vail.ICO.ISC.COM> <248@seti.inria.fr> <246@ssp1.idca.tds.philips.nl> <21952@cup.portal.com> <10983@smoke.BRL.MIL> <591@augean.OZ> <125@bbxsda.UUCP> <1 <137@bbxsda
Organization: Engineering Faculty, University of Adelaide, Australia
Lines: 22
Reply-To:

In article <11131@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>
>This is NOT an ivory-tower issue.  I certainly wouldn't be wasting
>effort trying to explain it to you guys if it were.
>
>I personally believe that architectures for which this is a real issue
>SHOULD be designed, not just for dead-pointer access trapping, but in
>order to obtain other benefits of tagged architectures.

I agree with your logic, but am unsure about the premise. If
disallowing traps on examining pointers to non-existant memory would
prevent the introduction of better machines, then I agree it is
worthwhile to allow the traps. But, I am unconvinced about the
advantages of such an architecture.

Please explain how allowing these traps allows for "better" hardware.
Follow up to comp.arch if it seems appropriate.

-- 
 Ian Dall           life (n). A sexually transmitted disease which afflicts
                              some people more severely than others.
idall@augean.oz