Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!bellcore!bellcore-2!rutgers!cbmvax!uunet!virtech!cpcahil
From: cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: FAQ - malloc array - clarify
Keywords: malloc, Sun, lint
Message-ID: <1990Sep11.002544.9151@virtech.uucp>
Date: 11 Sep 90 00:25:44 GMT
References: <8056@helios.TAMU.EDU> <1990Sep08.022034.8444@virtech.uucp> <1803@tuvie>
Reply-To: cpcahil@virtech.UUCP (Conor P. Cahill)
Organization: Virtual Technologies Inc., Sterling VA
Lines: 23

In article <1803@tuvie> hp@vmars.tuwien.ac.at (Peter Holzer) writes:
>cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) writes:
>
>>This is caused by the argument to malloc being unsigned, not signed.  A
>>cast in your code will fix this.
>
>No! Don't fix your code, which is correct. Fix the lint library.
>The argument to malloc should be the type returned by sizeof (): size_t
>(an unsigned integral type).

The argument to malloc is defined in the library (i.e. where malloc()
is encoded).  running lint against the source builds the lint library and
therefore the lint library will correctly reflect what the code has (besides,
without code, you can rebuild a lint library).

The problem that the original poster ran into is that on his system
the type of sizeof() is an integer.  However, the type of malloc's 
argument is an unsigned integer.

-- 
Conor P. Cahill            (703)430-9247        Virtual Technologies, Inc.,
uunet!virtech!cpcahil                           46030 Manekin Plaza, Suite 160
                                                Sterling, VA 22170