Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!eecae!tank!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: An interesting behaviour in printf
Message-ID: <16456@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 20 Mar 89 19:06:10 GMT
References: <960@Portia.Stanford.EDU> <15938@cup.portal.com> <1013@Portia.Stanford.EDU>
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 28

In article <1013@Portia.Stanford.EDU> joe@hanauma.stanford.edu
(Joe Dellinger) writes:
>I ran my [printf] program through lint with no complaint. Why doesn't
>"lint" catch this sort of error? And yes, I know, lint can't be expected
>to know the internal details of weird varargs programs...
>
>	BUT, printf is hardly "weird". It gets used ALL the time.
>Why did the creators of lint not tackle error checking for all the
>varargs programs in the standard libraries?

Because it was hard.

>Will "ANSI Lint" solve this problem? If no, why not? It seems there
>is no better reason than laziness...

Or disinterest.

Here is what the 4.3BSD-tahoe lint has to say:

	% cat foo.c
	main() { char foo[10]; printf("%s\n", foo[1]); }
	% lint -h foo.c
	foo.c(1): warning: printf: (char *) format, (char) arg (arg 2)

The change is due to Arthur Olson (elsie!ado).
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris