What is wrong with malloc? (Was: So You Think You Can Const?)

On 08/01/2025 09:46, David Brown wrote:

On 07/01/2025 20:32, Julio Di Egidio wrote:

<snipped>

In particular, I am using C90, and compiling with
`gcc ... -ansi -pedantic -Wall -Wextra` (as I have
the requirement to ideally support any device).

People who say they want their code to run on anything are invariably wildly exaggerating.

:)  I do have embedded, and FPGAs, and even transpiling to e.g. Wasm, etc. in mind, my overall idea for now simply being: as long as the device comes with a C compiler that is not too broken.  (I am also planning to distribute source files only: it also makes my life and coding so much easier, at the cost of not being able to "micro-optimize": where I am rather hoping that optimization can still come down the line if needed as an added pre or post processing step.)
So, you might very well be right that "C90" isn't the best possible choice not even for my requirement, anyway I am at a pre-alpha stage, I am sure I will be tightening it up.

People who say they want to write strictly standards-conforming code, especially C90, so that it will run everywhere, misunderstand the relationship between the C standards and real-world tools.

So, now that I have qualified it with "any device coming with a C compiler (that is not too broken)", would you think coding it in "ANSI C" makes some sense?

I would say that the most portable language standard to use would be a subset of C99.  Avoid complex numbers, VLAs, and wide/multibyte characters, and it will be compilable on all but the most obscure compilers.  The use of <stdint.h> types make it far easier to write clear portable code while keeping good efficiency, and many C99 features let you write clearer, safer, and more efficient code.  C90 was probably a good choice for highly portable code 15-20 years ago, but not now. (Your use of "malloc" eliminates far more potential devices for the code than choosing C99 ever could.)

Assuming I don't in fact care if and how well a compiler does its job (in fact my policy for now is: as long as it compiles with GCC with those flags), what is wrong with "malloc"?

When you have a function with a parameter of type "const T * p", this tells people reading it that the function will only read data via "p",

Never mind, it's a private (static) method, so I am not "lying" to anybody: rather const and cast and almost everything in C is altogether something else...
-Julio