Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!taumet!steve
From: steve@taumet.com (Stephen Clamage)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: validity of free() on later pointer operations
Message-ID: <316@taumet.com>
Date: 12 Jul 90 21:42:23 GMT
References: <1990Jul3.185032.8434@indetech.com> <1990Jul03.233255.2616@virtech.uucp> <1956@runxtsa.runx.oz.au>
Organization: Taumetric Corporation, San Diego
Lines: 14

edward@runxtsa.runx.oz.au (Edward Birch) writes:
>I quote the manual here:
>	The argument to "free" is a pointer to a block previosly allocated
>	by "malloc"; after "free" is performed this space is made available
>	for further allocation, but its contents are left undisturbed.

I wonder which manual that is.  ANSI C makes no such guarantee.  See
section 4.10.3 of the standard.

As Mr Birch also pointed out, if you play games with malloc/free, don't
expect your whiz-bang code to run on another system.
-- 

Steve Clamage, TauMetric Corp, steve@taumet.com