Re: lynx-dev Re: BUG (weird one): long filenames, specialized downloader, other stuff

[Vlad Harchev]

On Wed, 28 Apr 1999 address@hidden wrote:

> > 
> > From: Webmaster Jim <address@hidden> 
> > >I started looking at various char buffers that have numbers rather 
> > >than defined lengths.  There are a lot of them, e.g.: 
> >  
> > For that matter, should some number of these be dynamically created and 
> > automagically extended as needed? 
> 
> I pick through those and replace them as I find time.  Not all of them need
> to be changed (things like a buffer that's used to format a number), and
> just changing them does occasionally break things.  So there's no quick fix.
>[....]

 What for? In several cases (like in LYReadCFG.c) those buffers were used as
 temporary - ie some string was copied to buffer and some operations
were done on this string (like uppercasing). When you replace automatic buffer
 with dynamic, you 
 1) make the same scope be executed hundreds of times slower (since reclaiming
    automatic buffers takes no extra ticks, and malloc'ing and free'ing
    requires searching in tables and in lists - can be long operations)
 2) possibly fragment memory.

 And I see no advantages of such changes.

 I'm definitely against such changes.

 But size of buffers can be increased for sake of safety.

 Best regards,
  -Vlad