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From: Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: The return value of realloc(p,0)
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2023 11:55:25 -0700
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Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> writes:

> On 2023-09-01, Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> wrote:
>
>> What I meant was just over one bit /per zero-byte block/.  So if
>> there were 20,000 zero-byte blocks, they could be managed with
>> just a little more than 2500 bytes of allocated memory.  Sorry
>> for the confusion.
>
> The following is a much better requirement for malloc and realloc:
>
> In the zero size case, return a non-null pointer to a single
> program-wide object (always the same one), which can be passed
> to the free function any number of times.  [...]

This idea is worse in one important respect:  it doesn't satisfy
the specification in the C standard.

Incidentally, it also doesn't satisfy the requirements of the
people who proposed the idea to begin with.