From 013df84b3c633f5dd990f7c9b4cd99f5c870ebcd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Mattias Andrée Date: Sat, 17 Oct 2015 23:48:36 +0200 Subject: info: more on alloca MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Signed-off-by: Mattias Andrée --- doc/info/chap/memory-allocation.texinfo | 19 +++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+) (limited to 'doc/info') diff --git a/doc/info/chap/memory-allocation.texinfo b/doc/info/chap/memory-allocation.texinfo index a9d3c7e..5107d3a 100644 --- a/doc/info/chap/memory-allocation.texinfo +++ b/doc/info/chap/memory-allocation.texinfo @@ -305,6 +305,10 @@ tries to access memory that could not be allocated, or, depending on the kernel's configuration, before it returns. +On typical kernels and kernel configurations, +@code{alloca} and @code{malloc} will handle memory +exhaustion identically. + Undefined behaviour may be invoked if @code{alloca} is called within a function call. The behaviour depends on the machine, the compiler, and @@ -314,6 +318,21 @@ optimisations. You should avoid code similar to strcpy(alloca((strlen(string) + 1) * sizeof(char)), string) @end example +@code{alloca} has its restricts --- limited lifetime, +cannot be explicitly deallocated, not growable, and +not shrinkable --- but it can also be advantageous +because: +@itemize +@item +Results in cleaner code because it is deallocated +automatically. +@item +It does not waste any space on metainformation +required for bookkeeping. +@item +Uses a faster memory allocation mechanism. +@end itemize + @node Basic memory allocation -- cgit v1.2.3-70-g09d2