Re: [PATCH] Remove useless if-before-free tests.

From: David Symonds <dsymonds@gmail.com>
Date: Feb 17, 2008, 22:09 UTC
Message-ID: <ee77f5c20802171409k2dee2c87v8d84eba111c3d506@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <871w7bz1ly.fsf@rho.meyering.net>

On Feb 17, 2008 1:58 PM, Jim Meyering <jim@meyering.net> wrote:

Show 16 quoted lines

> This change removes all useless if-before-free tests.
> E.g., it replace code like this
>
>         if (some_expression)
>                 free (some_expression);
>
> with the now-equivalent
>
>         free (some_expression);
>
> It is equivalent not just because POSIX has required free(NULL)
> to work for a long time, but simply because it has worked for
> so long that no reasonable porting target fails the test.
> Here's some evidence from nearly 1.5 years ago:
>
>     http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-patches/2006-October/031544.html

That's not great evidence. It only tests 9 systems, and misses several targets that Git already runs on. It seems like a fairly minor cleanup for a definite loss of portability.

It's also somewhat useful for indicating that the particular pointer *might* be NULL.

Dave.