Peter Geoghegan <pe...@2ndquadrant.com> writes: > On 1 October 2012 15:00, Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: >> 1. Teach pg_malloc not to complain if result == NULL and size == 0.
> +1 to that proposal. >> 2. Before the malloc call, have it replace size == 0 with size = 1. > I don't like that proposal on purely aesthetic grounds. As Dimitri pointed out, there's really a third alternative, which is to force a NULL result for pg_malloc(0), ie void * pg_malloc(size_t size) { void *tmp; + if (size == 0) + return NULL; + tmp = malloc(size); if (!tmp) { psql_error("out of memory\n"); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } return tmp; } A key advantage of either #2 or #3 over #1 is that they eliminate the platform-dependent behavior, ie you can test anywhere and get the same results. #1 doesn't ensure that. The fact that 9.2 managed to get out the door without anybody noticing that pg_dump was basically broken on AIX (as well as any other platform with this behavior) says to me that we need a fix that makes the behavior not platform-specific. Given that the majority of platforms behave more like #2, maybe that's the best solution, but I could live with #3 as well. regards, tom lane -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers