[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#6822) some variable-sized arrays

["Jason Short" <jdorje@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=6822 >

Raimar Falke wrote:
> <URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=6822 >
> 
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 04:56:27PM -0800, Jason Short wrote:
> 
>><URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=6822 >
>>
>>The attached patch replaces some malloc'd arrays with variable-sized 
>>stack arrays.  One memory leak is fixed in the process.
>>
>>This should be faster, but my tests didn't show a measurable difference 
>>(on systems with inefficient malloc calls this may make an impact - but 
>>then those systems aren't likely to compile C99 anyway).  It's also 
>>safer and more legible.
> 
> I don't see that the benefits (safer) outweigh the costs (change must
> be done, compiler or other tools doesn't understand it).

Compilers understanding it isn't an issue since (1) we already require 
C99 and (2) the configure check for this particular C99 feature is 
already done.

I don't know that it's worth changing existing code, but new code should 
use stack arrays rather than malloc'd memory where possible.

jason