*BSD News Article 17413


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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.bugs
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!haven.umd.edu!uunet!emba-news.uvm.edu!trantor.emba.uvm.edu!wollman
From: wollman@trantor.emba.uvm.edu (Garrett Wollman)
Subject: Re: ioctls and core dumps
Message-ID: <1993Jun22.224941.10272@uvm.edu>
Sender: news@uvm.edu
Organization: University of Vermont, EMBA Computer Facility
References: <1993Jun22.173715.6498@fac.com> <C91nEG.LnL@ns1.nodak.edu>
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 22:49:41 GMT
Lines: 22

In article <C91nEG.LnL@ns1.nodak.edu> tinguely@plains.NoDak.edu (Mark Tinguely) writes:
> I found this a while ago in a small program using kvm. I used a global
> variable "free".

You're not allowed to do that.  Anything that happens to you as a
result of running such a program (including, but not limited to, your
computer turning into a frog) is entirely within the bounds of the C
Standard.

(However, as a quality-of-implementation issue, it would be nice if
you got something like "_free: multiply defined" from the linker.  You
probably would have if you had declared your `free' as an initialized
variable rather than an uninitialized one, since 386BSD's linker
implements the common model.)

-GAWollman

-- 
Garrett A. Wollman   | Shashish is simple, it's discreet, it's brief. ... 
wollman@emba.uvm.edu | Shashish is the bonding of hearts in spite of distance.
uvm-gen!wollman      | It is a bond more powerful than absence.  We like people
UVM disagrees.       | who like Shashish.  - Claude McKenzie + Florent Vollant