Re: [PATCH maint] builtin-merge.c: fix memory under-allocation

From: Brandon Casey <casey@nrlssc.navy.mil>
Date: Oct 9, 2008, 00:27 UTC
Message-ID: <0LPLRUZaEHuEZTri_v38ySJHqYAhrfOpOkyUviUH9eOrx8IXBEAzYA@cipher.nrlssc.navy.mil>
In-Reply-To: <20081009001727.GP536@genesis.frugalware.org>

Miklos Vajna wrote:

Show 7 quoted lines

> On Wed, Oct 08, 2008 at 07:07:54PM -0500, Brandon Casey <casey@nrlssc.navy.mil> wrote:
>> While we're at it, change the allocation to reference the variable it is
>> allocating memory for to try to prevent a similar mistake if the type is
>> changed in the future.
> 
> If this is really a problem, then I think it would be good to mention
> this in Documentation/CodingGuidelines.

That's fine. Though I didn't mean to imply that the memory under-allocation was caused by a change in variable type in this case. Re-reading my commit message, maybe it sounds like that.

  Something like this sometimes happens:

-    struct a_struct *foo = xmalloc(sizeof(struct a_struct));
+    struct a_bigr_struct *foo = xmalloc(sizeof(struct a_struct));

  which would be avoided if we had started with:

     struct a_struct *foo = xmalloc(sizeof(*foo));

-brandon