It is not a keyword in C, so it is not a nit. For all the language is concerned it is just a function that takes a number and returns a pointer. If a compiler t

It is not a keyword in C, so it is not a nit. For all the language is concerned it is just a function that takes a number and returns a pointer. If a compiler treats it any different it is only a question of optimizations or to generate helpful warning/error messages. You can point linker to a different implementation for all it cares.