Re: free(3)-ing variables in pg_dump

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On Tuesday 23 September 2003 16:25, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
> Andreas Joseph Krogh wrote:
> >Hi.
> >
> >I'm trying to implement functionallity to dump multiple tables with
> > multiple "-t <table-name>" options.
>
> excellent.
>
> >While digging in the source for pg_dump I see that
> >many local static variables are not freed( with free(3)). Is this lazy
> >programming because pg_dump is its own process where the kernel takes
> > care of cleaning up, so you don't bother to do it for some of the
> > variables? I'm malloc'ing some structs to build a list over tables which
> > are marked for dumping. Shall I bother to free(3) them?
>
> I don't think it's lazy, probably just a product of the programmer's
> awareness that little would be gained by it. Relying on the OS to clean
> up for you is perfectly valid in a shortlived program unless you get a
> major problem with memory leaks.

I didn't mean lazy as in bad - I ment lazy as in just what you pointed out:
little would be gained by it, so why bother.

> "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" would be my take.
>
> (If this is not the consensus I'm going to have some more work to do in
> the C port of initdb I'm working on, which is about one third done :-)

:-)

- --
Andreas Joseph Krogh <andreak(at)officenet(dot)no>
Managing Director, Senior Software Developer
OfficeNet AS

- - Writing software is more fun than working.

gpg public_key: http://dev.officenet.no/~andreak/public_key.asc
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