Item — HN Reader

I meant today, not in the past when C did not yet have prototypes. This is irrelevant today.

1 comments

well. the classic is:+-

    int * p = malloc( sizeof(int) );

which is horrible in either language, but is legal c, but not c++

In C you could write or have a macro which does the cast.

  int *p = malloc(sizeof *p);

In C++ you would have to add an explicit cast, which would not make it safer:

  int *p = (int*)malloc(sizeof char);

So from a type system perspective this is not safer.

it is safer. because you have to make the explicit cast, which either the compiler or a linter can, and should, warn you about.

and your post does not illustrate a macro. and if it did, the compiler/linter could diagnose it.

This is the fallacy: A cast does not make code safer you have to use it for regular code that has no issue. Because a linter warning about that is just noise. By example illustrated a bug in the C++ code hidden by the cast.