about malloc and calloc

[Roka100]

Hi,
I see calloc() can do malloc() and initial to value 0 , I wonder if
that means I can ALWAYS use calloc instead of malloc() ?

thanks;

[Default User]

Ro*****@gmail.com wrote:

Hi,
I see calloc() can do malloc() and initial to value 0 , I wonder if
that means I can ALWAYS use calloc instead of malloc() ?

You "can". It's not true that you "should" always use it.

Brian
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[Keith Thompson]

Ro*****@gmail.com writes:

I see calloc() can do malloc() and initial to value 0 , I wonder if
that means I can ALWAYS use calloc instead of malloc() ?

You can, but there's not much reason to do so. Initializing allocated
memory to all-bits-zero is not usually what you want to do. For
example, this does *not* guarantee that pointers or floating-point
variables will be set to NULL or 0.0, respectively.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.

[Kenneth Brody]

Keith Thompson wrote:

Ro*****@gmail.com writes:

I see calloc() can do malloc() and initial to value 0 , I wonder if
that means I can ALWAYS use calloc instead of malloc() ?

You can, but there's not much reason to do so. Initializing allocated
memory to all-bits-zero is not usually what you want to do. For
example, this does *not* guarantee that pointers or floating-point
variables will be set to NULL or 0.0, respectively.

Or, you may not require initialized memory in the first place, as you are
going to store info into it before using it. (For example, making a copy
of a string.)

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