Return value of malloc(0)

[Matthias Andree]

Pat Lashley <patl+freebsd at volant.org> writes:

> BUT, that said, the safest and most portable coding practice would be:
>
>        // The C standard does not require malloc(0) to return NULL;
>        // but whatever it returns MUST NOT be dereferenced.
>        ptr = ( size == 0 ) ? NULL : malloc( size ) ;

Safest (avoiding null derefence) would instead be:

       ptr = malloc(size ? size : 1);

BTW: // is not a valid C89 comment, but a GCC-ism.

-- 
Matthias Andree