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From: lindahl@violet.berkeley.edu (Ken Lindahl   642-0866)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Novice question about malloc() in Think C
Message-ID: <1991Feb25.183334.18500@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 25 Feb 91 18:33:34 GMT
References: <1991Feb25.103404.3662@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <12591@helios.TAMU.EDU>
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Well, I guess everybody should have to apologize at least once for posting
a blank followup, so here it is: I'm sorry. The fingers are faster than
the brain, sometimes.

In article <12591@helios.TAMU.EDU> n138ct@tamuts.tamu.edu (Brent Burton) writes:
>Your code is perfect.

So why doesn't it work? :-)

>I have had this problem too.  I don't know what it is, but I looked at
>the alloc.c file and tried to figure it out.  It's been a while, but I think
>it returns null if it can't get the block and also if the block requested
>is under a certain size.  Don't quote me on this nor flame me, people.

Well, I'm quoting you, but hopefully you won't think this is a flame. 

The original posting did not show the declaration for malloc() and this
is critical. In Think C 4.0 and later, the correct declaration is

	void *malloc(); 

In Think C 3.x and in most UNIX implementations, the correct declaration is

	char *malloc();

I know from experience that if you try the latter declaration in Think C 4.x,
you will get the behavior described above. The best way to get the correct
declaration is to #include <stdlib.h> in any file containing invocations of
malloc() or any of its friends(calloc(), free(), realloc(), ...).


Ken Lindahl				lindahl@violet.berkeley.edu
Advanced Technology Planning,
Information Systems and Technology
University of California at Berkeley