Note that I'm not saying that dead store elimination is the problem. I'm saying that dead store elimination in combination with other language features is a pr

Note that I'm not saying that dead store elimination is the problem. I'm saying that dead store elimination in combination with other language features is a problem. Dead store elimination is not unique to C. But those other language features are. Since I'm complaining about C in particular, I submit that the bit that I'm most worried about isn't the stuff that every language does. That said, I realize that allowing data that's hypothetically disappeared forever into the free() black hole to come back into the universe through white holes such as malloc() and buf[buf_length] aren't the only reasons why you'd want to make for sure that you can clear out unused memory. Which is why it would be nice if the C spec also included some way to securely clear up memory that the compiler isn't allowed to defeat. No, an optional feature in a spec that's only 3 years old and mostly not supported isn't good enough. If it isn't ubiquitous it's not a whole lot more useful than any of the platform- and architecture-specific fixes that already exist.