4 ms·

C absolutely lacks type-safety by design. Otherwise what would malloc return, besides void*? How would you implement generic containers in C, without using macr

• DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  * malloc would accept a typename argument T and return T* * calloc would a;so accept a typename T and count and return T[count]* * Generic containers could be implemented as something closer to C++ templates (or preprocessor macros on steroids, like T4, as you suggest).
  • hackyhacky 6y ago
    There is no typename in C.
• a1369209993 6y ago
  > Otherwise what would malloc return, besides void* IIRC, historically void* didn't exist, and it used char*. It added void as a unit type, and absent historical baggage could add... let's call it "noreturn" as a bottom type: #define NULL ((noreturn*)0) noreturn* malloc(size_t); void free(void*); noreturn exit(int); // never returns int main() { // where (T)... is any expression of type T void x = (T)...; // throw away the value T y = (noreturn)...; // a nonterminating expression void* p = (T*)...; // pointers convertible *to* void* T* q = (noreturn*)...; // pointers convertible *from* noreturn* *(noreturn*)...; // notionally, this should always fault *(void*)...; // read zero bytes, so always fine }