far pointers

[Harsimran]

Can any one explain what are far pointers and what is the difference
between malloc and calloc .Which is better ?

[Harsimran]

"Arthur J. O'Dwyer" <aj*@nospam.and rew.cmu.edu> wrote in message news:<Pi******* *************** ************@un ix48.andrew.cmu .edu>...

On Thu, 12 Aug 2004, CBFalconer wrote:

Je***********@p hysik.fu-berlin.de wrote:

Needing an array of ints (or long ints) with all elements
initialized to 0 is more or less the only time I use calloc().

While that may work for you, it is not guaranteed by the standard.

Amplification (sorry!;) : memsetting an 'int' to zero is not
guaranteed by the Standard to set the actual /value/ of that 'int'
to the integer zero. (But I think there's some debate about that;
I forget the details.) So what Jens is suggesting doesn't work.

However, unsigned types are guaranteed to have pure binary
representations , which means that memsetting an 'unsigned int' to
zero /will/ set its value to the unsigned integer zero! Ditto
'unsigned char', 'unsigned long', et cetera. (And I think ditto
the new C99 fixed-width types: 'int32_t' and 'int_least8_t' and
friends.)

I often use 'calloc' in image processing; for example, to get
a grayscale image of size w*h initialized to black, I'll write

unsigned char *im = calloc(w*h, 1);

So 'calloc' does have its uses; they're just rare.

-Arthur

I had gone through three books (just basics ones) but didnt find
memset memmove ect can any one plz explain it .

[Emmanuel Delahaye]

Harsimran wrote on 13/08/04 :

I had gone through three books (just basics ones) but didnt find
memset memmove ect can any one plz explain it .

A good reference for C functions:

http://www.dinkumware.com/refxc.html

--
Emmanuel
The C-FAQ: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/faq.html

"C is a sharp tool"

[Joona I Palaste]

Harsimran <sa************ @yahoo.co.in> scribbled the following:

"Arthur J. O'Dwyer" <aj*@nospam.and rew.cmu.edu> wrote in message news:<Pi******* *************** ************@un ix48.andrew.cmu .edu>...

On Thu, 12 Aug 2004, CBFalconer wrote:

>
> Je***********@p hysik.fu-berlin.de wrote:
>> Needing an array of ints (or long ints) with all elements
>> initialized to 0 is more or less the only time I use calloc().
>
> While that may work for you, it is not guaranteed by the standard.
Amplification (sorry!;) : memsetting an 'int' to zero is not
guaranteed by the Standard to set the actual /value/ of that 'int'
to the integer zero. (But I think there's some debate about that;
I forget the details.) So what Jens is suggesting doesn't work.

However, unsigned types are guaranteed to have pure binary
representations , which means that memsetting an 'unsigned int' to
zero /will/ set its value to the unsigned integer zero! Ditto
'unsigned char', 'unsigned long', et cetera. (And I think ditto
the new C99 fixed-width types: 'int32_t' and 'int_least8_t' and
friends.)

I often use 'calloc' in image processing; for example, to get
a grayscale image of size w*h initialized to black, I'll write

unsigned char *im = calloc(w*h, 1);

So 'calloc' does have its uses; they're just rare.

I had gone through three books (just basics ones) but didnt find
memset memmove ect can any one plz explain it .

They must be pretty crappy books then. memset is a function for setting
every byte in a range of bytes to a specific value. memmove is for
moving a range of bytes into another location in memory. Does this
answer your question?

--
/-- Joona Palaste (pa*****@cc.hel sinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"Show me a good mouser and I'll show you a cat with bad breath."
- Garfield

[Emmanuel Delahaye]

Joona I Palaste wrote on 13/08/04 :

memmove is for
moving a range of bytes into another location in memory.

Actually, no. memmove() is used to copy bytes in overlapping memory.

char s[] = "hello world";

memmove (s, s + 6, 5);

produces "world world"

Due to overlapping,

/* Don't do that */
memcpy (s, s + 6, 5);

would have produced an Undefined Behaviour.

(I'm quite sure you was aware of that...)

--
Emmanuel
The C-FAQ: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/faq.html
The C-library: http://www.dinkumware.com/refxc.html

"C is a sharp tool"

[Flash Gordon]

On 13 Aug 2004 04:57:51 -0700
sa************@ yahoo.co.in (Harsimran) wrote:

<snip>

I had gone through three books (just basics ones) but didnt find
memset memmove ect can any one plz explain it .

I can offer three possible explanations.

1) The books were bad.
2) The books were aimed only at getting you just about started and
deliberately left out those functions.
3) You didn't read the books very carefully.

I would recommend that you get The C Programming Language 2nd edition by
Kernighan & Ritchie.
--
Flash Gordon
Sometimes I think shooting would be far too good for some people.
Although my email address says spam, it is real and I read it.

[Default User]

Edd wrote:

Harsimran wrote:

Can any one explain what are far pointers and what is the difference
between malloc and calloc .Which is better ?

I believe others have answered your question perfectly well, but while we're on
the subject I'd like to ask about something that's been niggling me for a while now.

One of my C programming books (A Book On C 4th edition, Kelley & Pohl) has the
following to say about malloc and calloc (page 663):

void *calloc(size_t n, size_t el_size);
Allocates contiguous space in memory for an array of n elements, with each
element requiring el_size bytes. The space is initialized with all bits set to
zero. A successful call returns the base address of the allocated space;
otherwise, NULL is returned.

void *malloc(size_t size);
Allocates a block in memory consisting of size bytes. The space is not
initialized. A successful call returns the base address of the allocated space;
otherwise, NULL is returned.

The niggle of which I speak is with respect to the "contiguous " part of the
calloc description; is the space allocated by a successful malloc call not
necessarily required to be contiguous?

Note that the description of malloc() states it returns a "block in
memory". I can't think of any definition of "block" that would allow it
to be non-contiguous. I believe the author just used slightly different
phrasing.
Brian Rodenborn

[CBFalconer]

Joona I Palaste wrote:

Harsimran <sa************ @yahoo.co.in> scribbled the following:

"Arthur J. O'Dwyer" <aj*@nospam.and rew.cmu.edu> wrote:

On Thu, 12 Aug 2004, CBFalconer wrote:
Je***********@p hysik.fu-berlin.de wrote:

> Needing an array of ints (or long ints) with all elements
> initialized to 0 is more or less the only time I use calloc().

While that may work for you, it is not guaranteed by the standard.

Amplification (sorry!;) : memsetting an 'int' to zero is not
guaranteed by the Standard to set the actual /value/ of that 'int'
to the integer zero. (But I think there's some debate about that;
I forget the details.) So what Jens is suggesting doesn't work.

However, unsigned types are guaranteed to have pure binary
representations , which means that memsetting an 'unsigned int' to
zero /will/ set its value to the unsigned integer zero! Ditto
'unsigned char', 'unsigned long', et cetera. (And I think ditto
the new C99 fixed-width types: 'int32_t' and 'int_least8_t' and
friends.)

I often use 'calloc' in image processing; for example, to get
a grayscale image of size w*h initialized to black, I'll write

unsigned char *im = calloc(w*h, 1);

So 'calloc' does have its uses; they're just rare.

I had gone through three books (just basics ones) but didnt find
memset memmove ect can any one plz explain it .

They must be pretty crappy books then. memset is a function for setting
every byte in a range of bytes to a specific value. memmove is for
moving a range of bytes into another location in memory. Does this
answer your question?

and there is also memcpy() in the same group. Read all their
specifications.

--
Chuck F (cb********@yah oo.com) (cb********@wor ldnet.att.net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home .att.net> USE worldnet address!

[Stan Milam]

Harsimran wrote:

Can any one explain what are far pointers and what is the difference
between malloc and calloc .Which is better ?

Others have answered very well about the difference between malloc and
calloc, but like most C programmers who are anal rententive (myself
included) did not answer your question about far pointers. The only
reference they gave you was that far pointers were off-topic since they
are not ANSI C. Here is the long and short of it.

In the bad old MS-DOS days the X86 processors used 16 bit registers and
pointers which only allowed addressing 64K of memory. Intel included a
cludge where two registers (pointers) could be used to address 1 meg of
memory. The two pointers were called segment and offset respectively.
To address 1 meg the segment address was internally expanded to 20 bits
and shifed left four bits. The offset address was then added to render
the final 20 bit address. Ultimately it was a real mess and fostered a
lot of unportable code. I was so much happier when I started
programming in UNIX and did not have to mess with memory models and far
pointers.

--
Regards,
Stan Milam.
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