Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari!basser!john
From: john@basser.oz (John Mackin)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: v05i053: A "safe" replacement for gets()
Summary: don't try this at home, kiddies
Message-ID: <1623@basser.oz>
Date: 18 Nov 88 13:10:41 GMT
References: <674@quintus.UUCP>
Organization: Dept of Comp Sci, Uni of Sydney, Australia
Lines: 32

In article <674@quintus.UUCP>, Brandon Allbery writes:

> Posting-number: Volume 5, Issue 53
> Submitted-by: "A. Nonymous" <ok@quintus.UUCP>
> Archive-name: getsafe
> 
> [Aaaaagh.  I always suspected gets() was a potential bomb.  How about
> 
> #define gets(s) fgets(s, sizeof s, stdin)
> 
> as a quick fix?  ++bsa]

Just in case anyone is actually considering doing this,
I thought I had better point out it is a total disaster.
As in:

	char *p;

	...
	gets(p);

which under Brandon's suggestion will expand to

	fgets(p, sizeof p, stdin)

which is very unlikely indeed to do what anyone would want.

John Mackin, Basser Department of Computer Science,
             University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

john@basser.oz.AU (john%basser.oz.AU@UUNET.UU.NET)
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