[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Question about attributes

[Jason Short <vze2zq63@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Raimar Falke wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 10, 2002 at 05:53:23AM -0500, Jason Short wrote:
> > Raimar Falke wrote:
> >
> > > You see the attributes aren't really used. I agree that a seperate
> > > attribute_length is the way to go. Please send a patch.
> > What about just malloc'ing the buffer in attribute_get?  This saves the 
> > extra function call (which will generally always be necessary), at the 
> > small cost of having to free the buffer later.
> This all depends on the usage patterns. So far we have not enough
> users to make a final decision. The agents I have coded so far doesn't
> need these attribute_length call at all because they know the size. If
> more users like the tile markers are created we may have to rethink
> this. Also note that the tile markers in at least one case needs a
> slightly larger buffer.
Interesting.  Keep in mind that this data is unverified; if you connect 
to a server in place of some former player, and that player has uploaded 
invalid attributes, your client should not die.  So it is important that 
error-checking be done in all cases.

> Another solution: attribute_get will allocate a large-enough buffer if
> the supplied data pointer is NULL.
And return a pointer to the buffer?  Or will the user pass in a 
pointer-to-pointer?  Either seems like a reasonable solution.
jason