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Question regarding malloc casing

Hi All,

I have one question regarding return value cast of malloc.

I learned that we should not cast the return value of malloc because
it is bug hider.
But my question is as mentioned bellow .

Lets say I have not included stdlib.h in my program still I am using
malloc so compiler will throw warring because with out prototype
compiler assumes that function is declared as extern int
malloc() .Suppose I ignore that warning and did not cast the return
value
Now during linking time my code will be linked to exact
implementation of malloc which returns void * . So in this case will
it be a problem?

Regards,
Somenath
Dec 2 '07
10 1909
somenath wrote:
Hi All,

I have one question regarding return value cast of malloc.

I learned that we should not cast the return value of malloc because
it is bug hider.
But my question is as mentioned bellow .

Lets say I have not included stdlib.h in my program still I am using
malloc so compiler will throw warring because with out prototype
compiler assumes that function is declared as extern int
malloc() .Suppose I ignore that warning and did not cast the return
value
Now during linking time my code will be linked to exact
implementation of malloc which returns void * . So in this case will
it be a problem?

Regards,
Somenath
Big problem. The point of prototypes is to help the compiler do the
Right Thing. Without the prototype the compiler might do the Other
Thing. The Linker doesn't 'fix' anything.

In my own humble estimation, the most important and most valuable part
of the C89 Standard was function prototypes provided in standard
headers. Why would you use malloc() without including stdlib.h?

--
Joe Wright
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
--- Albert Einstein ---
Dec 3 '07 #11

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