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From: jr@amanue.UUCP (Jim Rosenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Shutting lint up about malloc (missing /*NOSTRICT*/)
Message-ID: <61@amanue.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-May-87 01:10:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: amanue.61
Posted: Sun May 17 01:10:32 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 18-May-87 06:37:16 EDT
Organization: Amanuensis Inc., Grindstone, PA
Lines: 68
Keywords: lint malloc NOSTRICT

This is driving me nuts.  I can't get lint on my system to shut up about
malloc.  In response to the following code:

#include <stdio.h>

struct foo {
	int foo1;
	char foo2;
};

extern char *malloc();

struct foo *goo()
{
	struct foo *p;

	/*NOSTRICT*/
	if ((p = (struct foo*) malloc(sizeof(struct foo))) == NULL) {
		(void) fprintf(stderr, "Out er memory, turkey\n");
		return NULL;
	}
	return p;
}

the command lint -u prints:

warning: possible pointer alignment problem
    (15)  	

Aargh!!  The man page for malloc() sayeth:  "malloc returns a pointer to
a block of at least _size_ bytes suitably aligned for any use".  Right.
lint apparently doesn't capiche that malloc() strains itself most mightly
to achieve this.  Well, OK, so my lint is too dumb to know about malloc(),
which arguably it should, what about /*NOSTRICT*/ -- isn't this supposed
to turn off this kind of message??  The tutorial for lint says:

"If it is desired to turn off strict type checking for an expression, the
comment

	/* NOSTRICT */

should be added to the program immediately before the expression."

Right.  Well it didn't tell lint to please unsquawk.  My system is VENIX
System V, which is a pretty straight V.2 except for implementing its own
shared memory calls and the /usr/group locking standard -- one would think
it would be an off-the-tape lint.  It can't be *that* ancient since it does
seem to know about void.  strings run on the file /usr/lib/lint1 produces
the following: (line numbers added)

	57:123456789
	58:VARARGS
	59:LINTLIBRARY
	60:ARGSUSED
	61:NOTREACHED
	62:yylex error, character %03o (octal)

Hmm.  No NOSTRICT.  grepping for STRICT in the strings listing yields
nothing.  Same for /usr/lib/lint2.  So it sort of looks as though /*NOSTRCT*/
got dumped from my version of lint.

(1) Did /*NOSTRICT*/ get dropped somewhere?  If so, was this a mistake?  If
not, can someone tell me **WHY**??  (2) Absent /*NOSTRICT*/ how the devil
am I supposed to get lint to shut up about casting the value returned by
malloc() to a struct <whatever> *?  The cast makes it clear what I mean and
the man page says I can do it.

I have some code that would completely pass lint but for this annoyance.