On Sun, 15 May 2022, o...@eigenstate.org wrote:
On Sun, 15 May 2022, arn...@skeeve.com wrote:
It allows you pass pointers of any type without requiring casts:
struct foo s[5] = ...
memmove(s, & s[1], 4 * sizeof(struct foo)); // shift down 1
The compiler won't complain because any pointer type can be passed
to a void* parameter. Otherwise you'd need to cast:
memmove((uchar*) s, (uchar*) & s[1], 4 * sizeof(struct foo));
Sure, but you could change it to do the same with char*.
char* has legitimate uses for things other than generic pointers,
and the conversion complaints catch bugs.
My point here is that It makes more sense to me to use a generic
pointer which have a size (the type it points) of 1, so arithmetic
can be applied to it. Of course I'm not proposing to change the
compiler and all the code. It was just a reflection. Allowing
arithmetic on void* solves the problem. Reading the definition of
void this could look incongruous, but C99 already specifies:
"A pointer to void shall have the same representation and alignment
requirements as a
pointer to a character type"
So I don't see any real trouble to allow the same operations as with char*.
Again, just some thoughts. The comments about uchar* or uint8* are
because arithmetic on void* brakes the concept of void, I don't
really like it. But sometime things are doomed to staid as they
are, even if they don't make sense...
adr.
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