Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ut-sally.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!ut-sally!jsq From: jsq@ut-sally.UUCP (John Quarterman) Newsgroups: mod.std.unix Subject: Storage allocators Message-ID: <2561@ut-sally.UUCP> Date: Thu, 1-Aug-85 16:46:03 EDT Article-I.D.: ut-sally.2561 Posted: Thu Aug 1 16:46:03 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 3-Aug-85 03:09:18 EDT Reply-To: std-unix@ut-sally.UUCP Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas Lines: 30 Keywords: stack allocation, standardizing undocumented features Approved: jsq@ut-sally.UUCP ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 31 Jul 85 13:14:10 edt From: Arnold Robbins Subject: Storage allocators To: cbosgd!std-c, ut-sally!std-unix Keywords: stack allocation, standardizing undocumented features Unix has long had an undocumented routine alloca(), which allocates storage off the stack. This storage then goes away when the function returns. I would like to see this documented in the Unix standard under development, and also included in the new ANSI C standard. I would suggest that the name get changed to something like salloc() [stack alloc], with semantics similar to malloc (returned storage probably initialized to garbage), only the storage is temporary, not permanent. I think that cross posting to both groups is appropriate, since C supports variables on the stack, so I doubt that there are many machines which can't do alloca(), and for Unix, it comes down to documenting something that has been there for a long time. ------------------------------ Discussions-Of: UNIX standards, particularly the IEEE P1003 draft standard. Submissions-To: ut-sally!std-unix or std-unix@ut-sally.ARPA Comments-To: ut-sally!std-unix-request or std-unix-request@ut-sally.ARPA UUCP-Routes: {ihnp4,seismo,harvard,gatech}!ut-sally!std-unix Archives-In: ~ftp/pub/mod.std.unix on ut-sally.ARPA (soon sally.UTEXAS.EDU)