Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!faline!thumper!ulysses!gamma!pyuxp!lcuxb!lcuxa!mike2
From: mike2@lcuxa.UUCP (M S Slomin)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Simulation of 'alloca' -- can it be done in TurboC or MSC?
Keywords: alloca
Message-ID: <203@lcuxa.UUCP>
Date: 19 May 88 12:37:27 GMT
Organization: Bell Communications Research
Lines: 15
Posted: Thu May 19 08:37:27 1988

Quick question: has anyone worked out a way to simulate the 'alloca'
function in either TurboC or MSC (DOS for those who don't know)?

Alloca is a memory allocation analogue to an automatic variable.  Just
as an automatic variable exists only while a function is in progress,
alloca allocates memory only while a function is in progress, and when
the function exits that memory is freed.  Obviously, this can be 
implemented with malloc/free combinations, but the automatic approach
seems cleaner, which perhaps explains why many programmers use alloca
if it is available.  It would be nice to implement this.

Thanks for the help.

					Mike Slomin
					bellcore!lcuxa!mike2