What is alloca()? [Generated by bison from flex]
Henry Spencer
henry at utzoo.uucp
Tue Sep 26 03:28:24 AEST 1989
In article <6361 at thor.acc.stolaf.edu> mike at stolaf.edu (Mike Haertel) writes:
>>>... What does alloca() do?
>>It's a nonstandard botch (originating in some poorly-designed ancient Unix
>>systems) that some of the Gnoids are really fond of...
>I think alloca() originated in one of the early VAX BSD's. My guess
>would be that it was invented for use implementing Franz Lisp...
It goes back farther than that. The first occurrence I'm aware of was in
PWB circa 1977. (PWB was a pdp11 Unix variant, sort of a neolithic ancestor
of System V.) It showed up in SCCS (PWB's biggest, uh, contribution to the
user interface) in particular.
--
"Where is D.D. Harriman now, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
when we really *need* him?" | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry at zoo.toronto.edu
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