🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <14455@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
>Now I wonder:  if I want to allocate an array with elements of known size
>but with number of elements not known until run-time, and if I don't really
>care what the initial contents are, _is_ there something in the standard to
>make
>	p = calloc(NumberOfElements, sizeof *p)
>better than
>	p = malloc(NumberOfElements * sizeof *p) ?

No.

Calloc() is pretty useless, actually; the initialization it does is usually
superfluous, isn't particularly portable (all-0-bits isn't necessarily a
zero floating-point number or a NULL pointer), and isn't cheap.  Otherwise
it's a synonym for malloc() with a slightly different calling convention.
Its presence is basically a historical accident.
-- 
There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry