Re: Access to array slices?

[tmoran@acm.org]

>    Buf     : access IC.Char_Array; -- "in out" parameter
Actually it's an "in" parameter whose value is a pointer.
There aren't any "out" or "in out" parameters in C, just "in" pointers
to where an output value is supposed to go.

> technique which makes translation of "chars *buf" mindless (as in
> you don't have to RTFM to determine whether caller or callee
> allocates the memory :-)

  If the C function takes a "chars *buf" then the caller had better supply
a value, ie, allocate some memory and supply its address.  If the C
function wants to allocate memory and pass back a pointer to it, it will
usually have "chars **buf" or "Handle *h" where Handle is a pointer, ie, a
typedef for chars *buf.  So most of the time it should be pretty
straightforward to see who is supposed to allocate the memory.