Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System

From	Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.c
Subject	Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System
Date	2011-11-15 14:37 +1300
Message-ID	<9idu23FhikU6@mid.individual.net> (permalink)
References	(6 earlier) <4EC18C2D.2010001@verizon.net> <9idh7dFhikU4@mid.individual.net> <4EC192F0.3000908@verizon.net> <9idj1lFhikU5@mid.individual.net> <4EC1A0BB.6060405@verizon.net>

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On 11/15/11 12:14 PM, James Kuyper wrote:
> On 11/14/2011 05:29 PM, Ian Collins wrote:
> ....
>> I think our opinions on what constitutes common sense differ somewhat.
>
> Probably; I think that the existence of "common sense" is a popular
> delusion, based upon people projecting onto others their own
> understanding of things. People suffering from that delusion often hold
> those others to blame for the failure of that projection to match reality.

You're probably right there!

>> I see not passing a pointer to something that has gone out of scope in
>> the same way as not holding a knife by the blade.  In both cases, doing
>> the consequences of doing the wrong thing tend to deter a repeat.
>>
>> Or maybe I've just been doing this stuff for way to long...
>
> Attempting to dereference a pointer to memory that has already been
> deallocated is one of the most common nasty mistakes made by C
> programmers. There are many other mistakes that are more common, but
> most of them are easier to diagnose than that one. I'm no expert in
> multi-threaded code, but it seems to me that the problem can only be
> worse if the dynamically allocated memory is shared between threads.

Sharing dynamically allocation memory between threads isn't really any 
mode dangerous than using it in single threaded applications.  The same 
care has to be taken in determining where the memory is released.  It 
goes without saying the problem largely evaporates in C++ with smart 
pointers.

> Several participants on this thread suggested that this was a serious
> problem, you've suggested that its trivial. I think that they may be
> exaggerating the difficulty, while you may be doing the opposite; I was
> hoping to provoke a more detailed discussion that would clarify the
> discrepancy. Instead I seem to have only provoked a discussion about my
> provocation.

I didn't so much suggest it was trivial, only that is was no worse than 
any other situation with pointers.  If you understand threading that is!

-- 
Ian Collins

Thread

Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Quentin Pope <qp19433@hotmail.NOSPAM.com> - 2011-11-10 20:21 +0000
  Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Lauri Alanko <la@iki.fi> - 2011-11-10 20:29 +0000
    Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-11-10 20:51 +0000
      Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-11-10 20:58 +0000
      Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2011-11-10 16:08 -0500
        Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-11-10 21:35 +0000
          Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2011-11-10 17:18 -0500
            Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-11-10 23:14 +0000
              Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Richard Damon <news.x.richarddamon@xoxy.net> - 2011-11-10 19:36 -0500
  Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Ben Pfaff <blp@cs.stanford.edu> - 2011-11-10 12:32 -0800
    Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2011-11-10 15:44 -0500
    Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2011-11-10 12:58 -0800
      Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System blmblm@myrealbox.com <blmblm.myrealbox@gmail.com> - 2011-11-17 15:53 +0000
  Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-11-10 20:45 +0000
    Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-11-10 21:00 +0000
  Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2011-11-10 15:14 -0700
  Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-11 11:22 +1300
    Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2011-11-14 11:10 -0800
      Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-15 08:28 +1300
        Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2011-11-14 14:48 -0500
          Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-15 10:15 +1300
            Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System jacob navia <jacob@spamsink.net> - 2011-11-14 22:18 +0100
              Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-15 10:26 +1300
            Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2011-11-14 16:46 -0500
              Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-15 10:58 +1300
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2011-11-14 17:15 -0500
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System blp@cs.stanford.edu (Ben Pfaff) - 2011-11-14 14:18 -0800
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-15 11:29 +1300
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2011-11-14 18:14 -0500
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Seebs <usenet-nospam@seebs.net> - 2011-11-14 23:01 +0000
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Phil Carmody <thefatphil_demunged@yahoo.co.uk> - 2011-11-16 10:39 +0200
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Seebs <usenet-nospam@seebs.net> - 2011-11-16 20:18 +0000
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Fritz Wuehler <fritz@spamexpire-201111.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> - 2011-11-17 02:54 +0100
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System pete <pfiland@mindspring.com> - 2011-11-16 21:29 -0500
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Seebs <usenet-nospam@seebs.net> - 2011-11-17 02:31 +0000
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Phil Carmody <thefatphil_demunged@yahoo.co.uk> - 2011-11-18 14:31 +0200
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-11-17 02:44 +0000
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2011-11-16 21:33 -0700
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System "io_x" <a@b.c.invalid> - 2011-11-17 04:01 +0100
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System blmblm@myrealbox.com <blmblm.myrealbox@gmail.com> - 2011-11-17 15:46 +0000
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Seebs <usenet-nospam@seebs.net> - 2011-11-17 18:48 +0000
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System blmblm@myrealbox.com <blmblm.myrealbox@gmail.com> - 2011-11-18 14:48 +0000
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-15 14:37 +1300
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Phil Carmody <thefatphil_demunged@yahoo.co.uk> - 2011-11-16 10:23 +0200
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2011-11-16 06:53 -0500
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2011-11-16 11:15 -0500
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2011-11-16 17:08 +0000
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Phil Carmody <thefatphil_demunged@yahoo.co.uk> - 2011-11-18 15:09 +0200
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Phil Carmody <thefatphil_demunged@yahoo.co.uk> - 2011-11-18 14:24 +0200
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2011-11-18 10:08 -0500
                Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Phil Carmody <thefatphil_demunged@yahoo.co.uk> - 2011-11-18 17:52 +0200
            Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2011-11-14 15:45 -0700
  Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System "christian.bau" <christian.bau@cbau.wanadoo.co.uk> - 2011-11-10 15:19 -0800
    Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-11-10 23:41 +0000
      Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2011-11-10 20:48 -0800
      Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System "christian.bau" <christian.bau@cbau.wanadoo.co.uk> - 2011-11-14 03:39 -0800
        Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Lauri Alanko <la@iki.fi> - 2011-11-14 13:08 +0000
          Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2011-11-14 09:21 -0500
        Re: Typecasting Pointers on a 64 bit System Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2011-11-14 12:54 -0800

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