Re: [Valgrind-developers] What to do when malloc() fails

[Bob F. <bfr...@si...>]

On Sun, 27 Jun 2004, Nicholas Nethercote wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Currently, for tools replacing malloc (eg. Memcheck), if a malloc call fails, 
> Valgrind aborts.  (Actually, an assertion failure occurs.)
>
> I figure that client calls to malloc should fail and return 0 like the system 
> malloc in this case.  That's what happens with tools that don't replace the 
> system malloc (eg. Nulgrind).  Does anyone object to this proposed behaviour?

Software exists (including software I maintain) which is capable of 
carrying on with an alternative algorithm (e.g. disk-based) when 
certain large malloc requests fail so I second the motion that malloc 
should return zero.  It would be wise to log that malloc did fail, 
along with the requested allocation size.

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
bfr...@si...
http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen