Re: [llnl-devel] Re: [Freeipmi-devel] kcs byte array model - validation

[Ian Zimmerman]

> > This may be true, with respect to signal handlers and call-back
> > procedures. But I'm skeptic about malloc usage inside library. Because
> > malloc, free uses static references inside, there is no way to
> > guarantee the buffer returned really belongs to the last call of the
> > current thread in a multi-threaded environment. I have seen some
> > references mentioning malloc is thread safe!. On all platforms and
> > implementations ?
> 
> I believe that your information regarding this topic is out of date and
> that if you grep through the source code of many libraries included with
> linux and other operating systems you will find that they do not worry
> about using malloc and free. This includes libraries that have been
> widely ported such as glib.

Right.  thread-safe != reentrant.  This is discussed in some detail in
Rich Stevens' APUE book (among other places).

Ian