Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pacbell!att-ih!ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!pur-ee!uiucdcs!bradley!bucc2!brian
From: brian@bucc2.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: nasty evil pointers
Message-ID: <13100005@bucc2>
Date: 13 Mar 88 18:44:00 GMT
References: <13100003@bucc2>
Lines: 31
Nf-ID: #R:bucc2:13100003:bucc2:13100005:000:1632
Nf-From: bucc2.UUCP!brian    Mar 13 12:44:00 1988


> /* Written 5:54 pm Mar 11,1988 by ihlpf.ATT.COM!nevin1 in bucc2:comp.lang.c */
> In article <13100003@bucc2> brian@bucc2.UUCP writes:
> >It would be nice if we could check every pointer as it was used...
> 
> This seems to be more of a job for the OS than for the language.  If you try
> to check every single use of pointers, you end up with a language like Pascal
> :-).  I don't mind the checking of pointers as long as it doesn't interfere
> with the efficiency that those of us who program in C have come to love :-).
> Also, if the pointer checks find an error, I would like it to transfer control
> to an error-handling section of my program so that I could either try to
> recover or go down *gracefully* (saving calculated data, etc.).
> -- 
>  _ __			NEVIN J. LIBER	..!ihnp4!ihlpf!nevin1	(312) 510-6194

  Of course we don't plan to ship products with pointer checking code! The
whole idea of checking the pointers is as a tool to locate the problems that
are causing the bad pointers in the first place. The pointer checking code
would be used only in the module debugging phase. It would be removed before
the project reached alpha test.

  You're right, this is a job of the OS. Sadly, we don't even have an
operating system on the machines we use, all we have is MS-DOS. (no smiley
faces)

...............................................................................

  When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

  Brian Michael Wendt       UUCP: {cepu,ihnp4,uiucdcs,noao}!bradley!brian
  Bradley University        ARPA: cepu!bradley!brian@seas.ucla.edu
  (309) 691-5175            ICBM: 40 40' N  89 34' W