🚀 go-pugleaf

Jerry Coffin (jcoffin@rmii.com) wrote:
> Lawrence Kirby <fred@genesis.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> >Is there any good reason why free shouldn't be declared as:

> >void free(const void *ptr);

> >in the standard? I don't believe there is any notion of altering a variable
> >when it is destroyed - after all const auto variables are destroyed just like
> >any other auto variable when they go out of scope.

> A good point.  Even if the library knows it can cast away the const, it
> allows you to pass a pointer to a const object without an explicit cast.

This seems to me to miss the point of "const", which is really a promise 
on the part of a function writer that the object pointed to by a pointer 
will survive the function call intact. I don't think a function can make 
that claim if it destroys the object!

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