Re: kfree(0) - ok?

From: Pekka Enberg
Date: Sat Aug 18 2007 - 04:11:24 EST


On 8/18/07, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> If yes, who invented this 1980s reminiscence, where you got valid
> pointers for malloc(0) ?

Well, kmalloc(0) has always been legal and traditionally returned a
pointer to a smallest non-zero sized object. We did try to make
kmalloc(0) illegal for a while but ended up fixing up a bunch of
call-sites for little or no gain. I did propose that kmalloc(0) should
return NULL but Linus and others pointed out that we can do better and
not mix up out-of-memory and zero-sized allocations.
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/