From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Mike Haertel <mike@ducky.net>
Message-Id: <200206220121.g5M1L8Wu022027@ducky.net>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] thornbird (another xscreensaver hack)
In-Reply-To: <b9f6e71885e65d570f85eeebbaf4c13d@plan9.bell-labs.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 18:21:08 -0700
Topicbox-Message-UUID: b5c97eac-eaca-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025

>I don't believe there is any requirement in the
>C standard (although I haven't checked) for the returned memory to
>be zeroed. A check of the 2 non-Plan 9 systems I have handy (Linux,
>Irix) show one will zero the memory and one won't.

The C standard specifically states that memory returned by malloc()
should be assumed to contain garbage.

Arguably any system library in which malloc() returns zeroed memory
should be considered broken in the sense that it may give people
the wrong expectation about the standard behavior.