[Rd] Ctrl-C of functions that allocated mem

[oliver]

On Wed, Jun 08, 2011 at 08:40:21PM -0400, Simon Urbanek wrote:
> 
> On Jun 8, 2011, at 8:06 PM, oliver wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Hello,
> > 
> > 
> > what happens, when a function (R-extension in C), that allocated memory
> > (strdup(), malloc()/calloc() and so on), and is used in interactive mode, then
> > will be stopped via Ctrl-C?
> > 
> > I would assume that there remains allocated memory,
> > which is not usable and also not accessable (hence no
> > way to free it).
> > 
> > Are there any mechanisms in R that could help in rolling
> > back the allocation?
> > 
> 
> Yes, if you read R-exts:
> http://r.research.att.com/man/R-exts.html#Memory-allocation
> you would know that you're not supposed to use malloc/calloc at all and if
> you allow interruption ("regular" C code does not) R_alloc does what you asked
> about.
[...]

In the printed (pdf) version of R-exts I found that
R_alloc()  and S_alloc() and some other functions
from section 6.1.1 have return type char*.

This seesm to be a relict from the K&R era,
because since ANSI C  void*  is the type for generic pointers.

will it be changed in the future, so that
R_alloc() will be  void* R_alloc() one day?


Ciao,
   Oliver