size_t (was: A lint question)

[Chris Torek]

In article <777 at quintus.UUCP> ok at quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
>... I assumed that it was the size_t of the dpANS.  I'm sorry to hear
>that this was just good luck.

I am not sure it can be called `good': having had a different definition,
replacing it with the Officially Proper version may break existing software.

>What *is* the size_t in [the 4BSD] <sys/types.h> for, then?

Sizes, of course!

[gyre65] cd /sys/sys; egrep size_t kern_exec.c
kern_exec.c:    size_t ts, ds, ids, uds, ss;
kern_exec.c:                (long)(1 + ts/CLSIZE), (size_t)btoc(ep->a_data));
[gyre66]

Here it holds the size of text, data, and stack segments.  (ids and uds
are initialised and uninitialised---bss---regions respectively; ds is
approximately their sum.)  In most cases it would not matter if this
`size_t' were unsigned.  But the name should probably change, perhaps
to something like `segment size' (segsz_t?).
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris at mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris