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From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: `static foo array[SIZE]' is not `malloc()' (Re: free (NULL);)
Message-ID: <K0C3NJ@xds13.ferranti.com>
Date: 9 May 90 19:05:12 GMT
References: <1194@wet.UUCP> <19461@duke.cs.duke.edu> <5804@buengc.BU.EDU>
Reply-To: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Lines: 26

In article <5804@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
> Using this function the array test[] will be allocated
> exactly once during the execution of the program, and the
> same value will be returned no matter how many times
> squirl() is called.  If you want two blocks of 100 char's
> simultaneously, this won't work.

Unfortunately, neither will the original proposal:

	char *foo()
	{
		static char *buffer = NULL;

		free(buffer);

		...

		buffer = malloc(...);

		return buffer;
	}

Unless you *like* dereferencing freed pointers, that is.

What it *will* do is let you deal with large objects without chewing up
lots of BSS.
-- 
`-_-' Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180.  <peter@ficc.ferranti.com>
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