Re: [musl] perhaps we should add re[c]allocarray?

[Hadrien Lacour <hadrien.lacour@posteo.net>]

On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 06:56:57PM +0200, Markus Wichmann wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 04:18:35AM -0600, Ariadne Conill wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > reallocarray and recallocarray are BSD extensions that solve similar issues as
> > strlcpy/strlcat, but with array reallocations instead of strings.
> >
> > reallocarray itself is already part of glibc since 2.28.
> >
> > Unfortunately, while working on new ifupdown implementation for Alpine, I
> > wanted to use recallocarray because it is very helpful in terms of pushing new
> > strings to a string array (you will always maintain a NULL-terminated array,
> > and you don't have to worry about it) -- but I discovered musl still does not
> > have it.
> >
> > Anyway, I think it would be useful to include both functions in musl 1.2.1.
> > If everyone agrees, I'll make a patch.
> >
> > Ariadne
> >
> >
>
> Seems mostly useless to me. reallocarray() is equivalent to realloc(),
> multiplying the last two arguments. And recallocarray() does seem
> useful, but moreso as a subroutine. I see little reason to put this into
> a standard library.
>
> On a formal point of view, neither of these has been standardized. I can
> find an Oracle man page for reallocarray(), but not recallocarray().
> Both are OpenBSD extensions. For glibc, I can find reallocarray() (which
> mostly wraps realloc()), but no recallocarray() (I checked in the most
> recent released version, which is 2.31 as of right now).
>
> It appears, reallocarray() enjoys more widespread adoption than
> recallocarray(). Both can, however, be easily found by a compile/link
> test. As stated above, however, the necessary functionality can easily
> be written in whatever application needs it, so I don't see the point.
> I've done that before; it is two lines if you manage your variables
> well.
>
> JM2C,
> Markus

I'm pretty sure the point of reallocarray is that it checks for overflow during
the multiplication of the arguments.