From: Edward Hill <ha AT nochance DOT com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: A Structured Problem ?
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 16:04:51 +0100
Organization: GEC-Marconi
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Message-ID: <3795E193.4AAD506E@nochance.com>
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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"Campbell, Rolf [SKY:1U32:EXCH]" wrote:
> 
> Edward Hill wrote:
> 
> > It's good practice not to cast, malloc doesn't require a cast and a cast
> > can sometimes mask errors.
> 
>     How can casting mask an error?  And why doesn't malloc need a cast?

Under ANSI/ISO Standard C, casting the return from malloc is not
necessary,
and in fact modern practice discourages it, since it can
camouflage important warnings which would otherwise be generated
if malloc() happened not to be declared correctly; 

An example would be not having #include <stdlib.h> if malloc isn't cast
it would give you a compiler warning telling you your assigning a
pointer
from an integer, the default return value. If you cast the return from
malloc
you will silence this warning.

Ed