Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!datanguay
From: datanguay@watmath.waterloo.edu (David Adrien Tanguay)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re: malloc/free practice - more from the author
Message-ID: <30566@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Date: 21 Oct 89 13:00:44 GMT
References: <1989Oct17.033415.16036@anucsd.oz> <11340@smoke.BRL.MIL> <30538@watmath.waterloo.edu> <11363@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: datanguay@watmath.waterloo.edu (David Adrien Tanguay)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 25

In article <11363@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes:
# In article <30538@watmath.waterloo.edu> datanguay@watmath.waterloo.edu (David A
# >I disagree about the second sentence.
# 
# Again, you dropped context, this time from my posting instead of the
# Standard.  I explained what the "assigned to" was all about.

I did drop it, but it didn't explain any shortcoming in the "no you can't
free" argument: I actually used it to confirm my deductions while writing
the argument.

# You're
# trying to give it meaning that was never intended, and by the "Could
# a reasonable person, in good faith, really misunderstand our intention?"
# test (which was one criterion for whether or not wording changes were
# called for during evaluation of public-review comments), I would have
# to say that the existing wording, taken in toto, is clear enough.

Well, I agree with you here (which is why this is a pedantic argument).
It would take considerable bad faith for anybody to want to interpret
the standard in such a way to make free() useless. I still think it is
a reasonable interpretation of what the standard says, but it is clearly
not what the standard intends.

David Tanguay