begin Gabriel Rosa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Wed, Mar 19, 2003 at 06:08:13PM -0800, Peter Jay Salzman wrote: > > i've heard this from two people now. > > > > some students are being taught they should stay clear of malloc() and > > instead use calloc() because calloc() is the "old school" way of getting > > memory dynamically. they're taught that malloc() may not be present in > > all implementations of the C library. again, because calloc() is "old > > school". presumably, malloc() is ... new fangled. ;) > > > > actually, both people used the words "old school", so i'm assuming > > that's some kind of quote by the professor. > > > > just for my own self-edification, does anyone know anything about this > > "old school" and "new school" business? i've never heard of it before. > > > > From what I remember, and from a quick manpage check, calloc is the one that > zeros the allocated chunk for you.
there's another very slight difference - the way you specify the amount of memory. > I would assume that's the real reason why people would instruct their students > in the use of calloc vs malloc. i think you'd be hard pressed to find a c lib > implementation that didn't have malloc, so the "old school" argument is > probably just a way to sound like you know what you're doing :) i'm completely man/info page taught, so i figured there was more to the story than i know about. but yeah, that was kind of my first reaction too. :-/ pete -- Fingerprint: B9F1 6CF3 47C4 7CD8 D33E 70A9 A3B9 1945 67EA 951D _______________________________________________ vox-tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
