Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!envy.pika.mit.edu!scs
From: scs@envy.pika.mit.edu (Steve Summit)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: best way to return (char *)
Message-ID: <12365@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 1 Jul 89 21:42:56 GMT
References: <1989Jun23.170749.23253@utzoo.uucp> <10345@claris.com>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: scs@adam.pika.mit.edu (Steve Summit)
Lines: 18

In article <10345@claris.com> kevin@claris.com (Kevin Watts) writes:
>A similar approach, used by Apple in their upcoming GS/OS is as follows:
>On input, pass a buffer with its length (including the space for the length)
>in the first word (one could use a long instead).  If the buffer is large
>enough, the routine uses it, otherwise the routine returns an error code and
>puts the size of the buffer it needs into the _second_ word of the buffer.

Yuck.  This sort of type punning within arrays always seems to me
to be a holdover from assembly language days, before we had
record structures.  If you want an aggregate consisting of a
buffer size, a required length, and a buffer, use a real
structure; don't try to "assemble one out of spare parts."  (I am
aware that implementing variable-sized structures can be tricky,
perhaps requiring an extra level of indirection, which is
probably one reason punned array techniques remain popular.)

                                            Steve Summit
                                            scs@adam.pika.mit.edu