From: Brandon Casey Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:27:40 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH maint] builtin-merge.c: fix memory under-allocation Message-ID: <0LPLRUZaEHuEZTri_v38ySJHqYAhrfOpOkyUviUH9eOrx8IXBEAzYA@cipher.nrlssc.navy.mil> In-Reply-To: <20081009001727.GP536@genesis.frugalware.org> Miklos Vajna wrote: > On Wed, Oct 08, 2008 at 07:07:54PM -0500, Brandon Casey 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