thats not even close to reasoning imo, its just an assertion. ... but i agree that the code is safer if you check for bad cases. i can't see why allocating ze

thats not even close to reasoning imo, its just an assertion. ... but i agree that the code is safer if you check for bad cases. i can't see why allocating zero ever is more sensible than not doing it at all (and therefore avoiding even having to know about this problem, much less deal with it).