Re: value of dangling pointer

[Igor Khavkine]

On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 02:37:26PM +0300, Kalle Olavi Niemitalo wrote:
> Igor Khavkine <i_khavki@alcor.concordia.ca> writes:
> 
> > You have to remember that the function free() cannot modify the value
> > of its argument (nm->name) since it's only passed by value.
> 
> Please see the recent "Defined?" thread on <news:comp.std.c>,
> in particular <news:3B3BE779.4FEA3647@wizard.net> and
> <news:9hg8ir$jrp$1@oravannahka.helsinki.fi>.

I've read these postings. And I am utterly disgusted by the
fact that loading an _integer_ value into a register may cause
a trap on some architectures (after all, pointers are nothing
but integers). In other words, according to the standard:

Is not valid               Is valid
void *p = malloc(1);    |  void *p = malloc(1);
free(p);                |  free(p);
p;                      |  (long)p;

To my knowledge, on the ix86 loading an address into a register
does not cause any traps, regardless of the value of the pointer.
I just hope any other same architecture has no such sideffects
either.

Igor