To avoid the duplication, with risk of mismatch, and to make it one less thing for the reader to check, I have #define NEW(a) ((a) = emalloc(sizeof(*(a))))

To avoid the duplication, with risk of mismatch, and to make it one less thing for the reader to check, I have #define NEW(a) ((a) = emalloc(sizeof(*(a)))) NEW(foo); Similarly with NEW0() and ecalloc(). Yes, the macro uses the parameter more than once, and yes it's another macro for the reader to grasp, but it's a simple one and NEW() is used so widely it's soon learnt.