[Pyrex] C pointers and arrays again...

[Adapted Cat]

  While I understand that it's best for the Pyrex code to be the main
reference, and for the C code to be re-generated at compilation
time, I can see situations where that won't happen - for example if
gcc is an admin-supported compiler, and thus part of some automated
build system, by pyrexc is not. The generated C might then be used
as the reference, and portions could be extracted and used elsewhere,
perhaps without proper prototyping. Or perhaps there is some new
version of a library, and the functions you are using are no longer
declared in the header files you've included - this would be picked up
by pyrexc, but not by the automated gcc build system.

  Now suppose that you have some function that takes a pointer, and
the generated code passes it a 0 instead of a NULL. In the absence
of a prototype, the 0 is an integer by default, whereas NULL is a void *.
Suppose further that you're compiling on a platform on which integers
and pointers have different storage sizes, which is becoming more
common as memory sizes increase while integers are often left at
32 bits. This scenario would lead to corruption of the stack, in a way
that will be hard to find - especially if you aren't aware of the storage
size mismatch - though easy to fix.

  While it is somebody else's stupid mistake that causes the problem,
it is my code that would get a bad reputation as a result.

  I do realize that this is a pedantic point here, but there is a difference
between 0 and NULL, and there is a "correct" way to do this, and since
Pyrex already recognizes that NULL is a special case, the least it could
do would be to preserve it.

Thanks.

On 1/26/07, Greg Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
> Adapted Cat wrote:
> > Even though NULL is a reserved word in Pyrex, the generated C
> > code uses 0.
> >
> > Could the NULL be preserved in the C code, please?
>
> Why? The only situation I know of where it could make
> a difference is if you were using old K&R-style function
> headers, which Pyrex doesn't.
>
> > Also, it seems that there is no way to declare a C array pre-filled
> > with directly in Pyrex.
>
> That's true. It's on my list, but it doesn't have a
> very high priority at the moment.
>
> --
> Greg
>
>