Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2001 16:45:25 +1000 From: Greg Black <gjb@gbch.net> To: Leo Bicknell <bicknell@ufp.org> Cc: Chris Costello <chris@calldei.com>, FreeBSD Hackers <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: tiny patch to pkg_add Message-ID: <nospam-999931525.93020@maxim.gbch.net> In-Reply-To: <20010907192219.A67548@ussenterprise.ufp.org> of Fri, 07 Sep 2001 19:22:19 -0400 References: <20010907150416.A38565@dub.net> <20010907151935.A40146@dub.net> <20010907183242.A66179@ussenterprise.ufp.org> <20010907174626.A548@holly.calldei.com> <20010907192219.A67548@ussenterprise.ufp.org>
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Leo Bicknell wrote: | On Fri, Sep 07, 2001 at 05:46:26PM -0500, Chris Costello wrote: | > > bzero((void *)packagesite, sizeof(packagesite)); | > | > That's unnecessary unless you know you're going to be reading | > data from that string starting somewhere other than | > &packagesite[0];. And the `void *' cast is unnecessary, as an | > array is converted to a pointer when passed to a function, and | > any data pointer is also implicitly converted to a `void *' | > pointer where necessary. | | That's not the only reason to do it. Many people in the past have | gotten passwords out of various applications by making them core | dump, sifting through /dev/kmem, and other things. While it's not | clear that his application might have these issues, I come from | the better safe than sorry school. If you want to make a string | "empty", make it empty, don't just clobber the first character. If this was a password, then there would be reasons to clear it out, but it's not. Don't just make work for the sake of it, but understand the code and do what is needed. | The void * is necessary to make lint happy. It is not necessary | for the program to work right. If you have a lint that needs the cast, throw it away because it's wrong. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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