Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!CORY.BERKELEY.EDU!dillon
From: dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: 'void *' (was Re: malloc() prob. on 3.4a)
Message-ID: <8804200436.AA22240@cory.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 20 Apr 88 04:36:03 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 23

>Do you get my point?  All C compilers correctly handle the conversion
>of `char *' to pointer to anything; few have `void *'. Why should you
>let your laziness get in the way of the portability of your code to
>other Amiga C compilers? 

	It depends on your definition of 'right'.  If you want to limit
yourself to obsolete versions of C, be my guest.  In my experience, to
write a truely portable C program (e.g. 32 bit int UNIX compiler to, say,
an IBM-PC C compiler) takes twice as long and as half as readable no
matter what you do.

>Why not type a few extra casts just to be
>sure?  How much effort does it really take to do it right? 

	It sounds like you aren't sure of your own code.  I don't make
those kind of mistakes.  The type on the right is obvious since it is
the same as the type on the left (in a pointer assignment); I don't need
to be told twice, and when I read my source 10 years from now it will
look as clear cut and clean and understandable as it did when I first 
wrote it.  KEEP IN MIND that this whole argument deals solely with
the declaration of functions that return different pointer types at
different times.

				-Matt