From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Jim Blandy <jimb@zwingli.cygnus.com>
To: Andrew Cagney <ac131313@cygnus.com>
Cc: Stan Shebs <shebs@apple.com>, Michael Snyder <msnyder@cygnus.com>, gdb-patches@sources.redhat.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH] use memset to zero the fields of a new frame_info
Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 13:06:00 -0000
Message-id: <npr8xkmq1m.fsf@zwingli.cygnus.com>
References: <3B042FD4.81EE2FC3@cygnus.com> <3B04330A.21E8784E@apple.com> <3B049F47.5040706@cygnus.com>
X-SW-Source: 2001-05/msg00384.html

Andrew Cagney <ac131313@cygnus.com> writes:
> When it comes down to it, I'm more concerned with ensuring that all 
> memory is initialized to a well defined, machine independant, value then 
> what the value actually is.  Zero happens to be convenient.

Using memset(addr, 0, size) to clear a structure is certainly not
machine-independent.  You have no idea whether the compiler represents
integer zero, null pointers, floating-point zeros, etc. as a series of
zero bytes or not.  Using memset this way is not typesafe.

(No, I don't think this ``concern'' has any practical consequence.  I
have no opinion on the actual issue.  I just want to be a smarty
pants.)