Why is it dangerous?

[Julian]

'evening.

I'm not new to C and have been programming in it since I was 8 but
here's a strange problem I've never seen before.

When I compile a program from our C course with a windows compiler
there is no problem but when I try to compile it with a linux compiler
it complains that

a_03.c:(.text+0 x4d): warning: the `gets' function is dangerous
and should not be used.

Is linux more dangerous than windows? Where can I download a
non dangerous gets function? I have never used gets before is
there undefined behavior somewhere?
Here is a trimmed down example program from my assignment that
demonstrates the problem

#include <stdio.h>
#include <malloc.h>

void main()
{
char *string;
printf("enter string (max 2000 chars): ");
fflush(stdin);
fflush(stdout);
string = (char *)malloc(2001);
if(!string) exit(1);
gets(string);
printf("you entered: %s\n", string);
free(string);
exit(0);
}

On windows with TurboC and Lcc no error is printed. On linux with
gcc it says gets is dangerous.

Please advise my instructor says gcc is overly pedantic.

[Ben Bacarisse]

Richard Heathfield <rj*@see.sig.in validwrites:

Ben Bacarisse said:

>Richard Heathfield <rj*@see.sig.in validwrites:

>>Default User said:
Richard Heathfield wrote:
Default User said:
>
Please try not to use odd abbreviations that are not standard
English.
>
Such as?

Well, Usanians. Do you think that is a standard abreviation?

It's not an abbreviation.

...and later...

| United States of America -United States of American (for which
| "Usanian" is a convenient contraction).

No contradiction, according to my lights.

In the part you clipped I said this was another whole pin-full of
angels to count -- i.e. that it is endlessly debatable.

When I was in school, I was
taught that to form an abbreviation you took the first letter of each
word, as in "BBC" for "British Broadcasting Corporation", "RAF" for "Royal
Air Force", "MCC" for "Marylebone Cricket Club", etc. (If they happened to
form a pronounceable word, then you had not only an abbreviation but also
an acronym.) But "contractio n" was a more general term that referred to a
more general shortening, not merely the taking of each first letter.

OK. While I would not trust my schooling to have been accurate about
anything, I accept that you might. I won't cite any authorities in
support of a much broader meaning for the term because that would just
invite you to cite still more. Instead, I invite you to agree that it
is debatable and that we should not debate it here.

--
Ben.

[santosh]

CBFalconer wrote:

Richard Heathfield wrote:

>>

... snip ...

>>
No contradiction, according to my lights. When I was in school, I
was taught that to form an abbreviation you took the first letter
of each word, as in "BBC" for "British Broadcasting Corporation",
"RAF" for "Royal Air Force", "MCC" for "Marylebone Cricket Club",
etc. (If they happened to form a pronounceable word, then you had
not only an abbreviation but also an acronym.) But "contractio n"
was a more general term that referred to a more general shortening,
not merely the taking of each first letter.

I see none of this in any C99 standard.

A bit too late for this thread. Just killfile it.

[santosh]

Paul Hsieh wrote:

On Aug 14, 10:16*pm, [e-mail] m wrote:

>So let me see if I got this right...

Off-topic:

- Networking in C
- Threading in C
- Creating directories in C
- Future C standards
- Programs written in C

You forgot:

- The general practice of programming and computer science

comp.programmin g?

[ ... ]

- Any real world program written in C outside of command line
utilities

They are topical. However most of the posters are newbies with
elementary questions.

- Comparisons of C with any other language

This should be topical, though of course, it's prone to spiralling into
flamewars.

<snip>

[Joachim Schmitz]

Antoninus Twink wrote:

On 11 Aug 2008 at 22:17, Richard Heathfield wrote:

>Willem said:

>>The person driviong that other car would, if you were killed, have
the very traumatic experience of having caused your death, as
opposed to just causing you some injuries had you worn your
seatbelt.

They might also suffer the even more traumatic experience of having
you smash through their windscreen, injuring or even killing them.

Oh come on, has this ever actually happened?

Yes it surely has. It has also happend that passengers not using their belt
injured/killed the (belted) driver in such accidents.

Bye, Jojo

[Ian Collins]

Joachim Schmitz wrote:

Antoninus Twink wrote:

>On 11 Aug 2008 at 22:17, Richard Heathfield wrote:

>>Willem said:
The person driviong that other car would, if you were killed, have
the very traumatic experience of having caused your death, as
opposed to just causing you some injuries had you worn your
seatbelt.
They might also suffer the even more traumatic experience of having
you smash through their windscreen, injuring or even killing them.

Oh come on, has this ever actually happened?

Yes it surely has. It has also happend that passengers not using their belt
injured/killed the (belted) driver in such accidents.

Which is why sensible countries require back seat passengers to wear
seatbelts. How does this relate to C by the way?

--
Ian Collins.

[Antoninus Twink]

On 16 Aug 2008 at 10:38, Joachim Schmitz wrote:

Antoninus Twink wrote:

>On 11 Aug 2008 at 22:17, Richard Heathfield wrote:

>>They might also suffer the even more traumatic experience of having
you smash through their windscreen, injuring or even killing them.

Oh come on, has this ever actually happened?

Yes it surely has. It has also happend that passengers not using their belt
injured/killed the (belted) driver in such accidents.

[citation needed]

[Richard Heathfield]

Ian Collins said:

Joachim Schmitz wrote:

>Antoninus Twink wrote:

>>On 11 Aug 2008 at 22:17, Richard Heathfield wrote:
Willem said:
The person driviong that other car would, if you were killed, have
the very traumatic experience of having caused your death, as
opposed to just causing you some injuries had you worn your
seatbelt.
They might also suffer the even more traumatic experience of having
you smash through their windscreen, injuring or even killing them.
Oh come on, has this ever actually happened?

Yes it surely has. It has also happend that passengers not using their
belt injured/killed the (belted) driver in such accidents.

Which is why sensible countries require back seat passengers to wear
seatbelts. How does this relate to C by the way?

It's an analogy to do with the use of gets(), first raised in this thread
by Eric Sosman, in which he suggests that those who use gets() despite its
known dangers are analogous to those who refuse to wear seatbelts. As
such, it's reasonably relevant. Although it is possible to stretch an
analogy too far (which is why "proof by analogy is fraud", as Stroustrup
rightly said), I don't think this has happened yet in the current case.

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk >
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

[Doug Miller]

In article <jr************ *************** ***@bt.com>, rj*@see.sig.inv alid wrote:

>Doug Miller said:

>In article <Wu************ *************** ***@bt.com>, rj*@see.sig.inv alid
wrote:

>>>Doug Miller said:

I'm guessing you don't know many (if any) Canadians ...

A few.

Not very well, evidently.

Begging the question.

I notice you snipped the rest of my post, restored here for your convenience:
---------------
I spent several years working for a small US subsidiary of a much larger
Canadian firm. I can assure you that *none* of the Canadians I worked with
thought of themselves as "Americans" .

>or you wouldn't imagine that they would think of
themselves as "Americans" .

>Really.

Ask them.
----------------
Go on -- ask those few Canadians of your acquaintance how they think of
themselves. Ask them if they consider themselves to be Americans. If fortune
smiles on you, all they will do is laugh uproariously, or simply give you a
puzzled look.

[Richard Heathfield]

Doug Miller said:

In article <jr************ *************** ***@bt.com>, rj*@see.sig.inv alid
wrote:

>>Doug Miller said:

>>In article <Wu************ *************** ***@bt.com>,
rj*@see.sig.inv alid wrote:
Doug Miller said:

I'm guessing you don't know many (if any) Canadians ...

A few.

Not very well, evidently.

Begging the question.

I notice you snipped the rest of my post,

Yes, because the part of your response to which I was replying was the part
in which you were begging the question. The rest of your post was merely
anecdotal, and I had no comment to make on it, which is why I snipped it.

restored here for your convenience:

No point. I have no comment to make on your experience, which differs from
mine. It is possible that you are confused by the fact that Canadians are
likely to think of and describe themselves as Canadians rather than
Americans for the same reason that Germans are likely to think of and
describe themselves as Germans rather than Europeans. That does not mean
that Canadians are not Americans, any more than it means that Germans are
not Europeans.

<snip>

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk >
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

[Doug Miller]

In article <WL************ *************** ***@bt.com>, rj*@see.sig.inv alid wrote:

>No point. I have no comment to make on your experience, which differs from
mine. It is possible that you are confused by the fact that Canadians are
likely to think of and describe themselves as Canadians rather than
Americans for the same reason that Germans are likely to think of and
describe themselves as Germans rather than Europeans. That does not mean
that Canadians are not Americans, any more than it means that Germans are
not Europeans.

You seem determined to ignore the point here: Canadians *don't* consider
themselves to be "Americans" , your anti-American fantasies to the contrary
notwithstanding .