Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!att!bellcore!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!shelby!polya!modesty!ramani
From: ramani@modesty.Stanford.EDU (Ramani Pichumani)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
Subject: alloca(3C)
Message-ID: <11601@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 31 Aug 89 07:13:50 GMT
Sender: USENET News System <news@Polya.Stanford.EDU>
Reply-To: ramani@modesty.Stanford.EDU (Ramani Pichumani)
Organization: Stanford University Computer Science Department
Lines: 20


Does anyone have a real working version of alloca(3C) for the MIPS
compiler?  I'm using a Silicon Graphics 4D R2000 box which doesn't
come with alloca() in its library.  Doug Gwen's semi-portable version
won't do for my application since I truly need to extend the stack.
I'm aware that the use of alloca() is discouraged because it is
compiler and machine dependent.  Yet all the Berkeley UNIX machines
I've used seem to have it.  And besides, allocating memory locally
seems like a very convienent way of cleaning up garbage that is local
to a procedure.  Furthermore, dynamically allocated local memory can
ease fragmentation problems with the heap.

I've been told by one source that alloca() can't be truly implemented
on a MIPS compiler because of the way it handles it's stacks.  I hope
this isn't the case.

Ramani Pichumani                              Tel: (415) 723-2902 or 723-2437
Department of Computer Science                            Fax: (415) 725-7411
Margaret Jacks Hall, Room 308             email: ramani@patience.stanford.edu
Stanford, CA 94305 USA                     uunet!patience.stanford.edu!ramani