Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!news!nujoizey!gwu
From: gwu@nujoizey.tcs.com (George Wu)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Why no renew
Keywords: initializing new memory with zeroes
Message-ID: <1921@news.tcs.com>
Date: 23 Mar 91 00:08:37 GMT
References: <1991Mar16.172814.6525@mathcs.sjsu.edu> <966@elan.Elan.COM>
Sender: root@tcs.com
Reply-To: gwu@nujoizey.tcs.com (George Wu)
Organization: Teknekron Communications Systems
Lines: 21

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     Concerning the ongoing debate of whether newly allocated objects should
have memory initialized to zero, I propose we make it a compiler command
line option.  This will enable both camps to have the behavior they wish.
(I don't even want to get into an argument over what the compiler default
action should be.  Actually, I do.  The default should be to not initialize
memory on its own.)

     Given this capability, I suspect developers would usually turn on the
zeroing option while an application is under development, and then turn it
off when the code is ready to be tested and shipped.

     Does this fall within the ANSI committee's mandate?  Or is this idea
too implementation oriented for their more language definition role?

							George

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George J Wu, Software Engineer        | gwu@tcs.com or uunet!tcs!gwu
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