Re: [igraph] Destroying uninitialized graphs

[Gábor Csárdi]

Matthew,

I somehow don't like this idea. I think the user should keep track of
what (s)he initializes and (s)he doesn't. The igraph_zero function
would just discourage this. I haven't seen such functions in other
libraries that are similar to igraph, e.g. GSL, either.

You can always write such a function for yourself, and you can write
your own destroy function as well, if you like, they are both very
simple:

void igraph_zero(igraph_t *graph) {
  memset(graph, 0, sizeof(igraph_t));
}

void igraph_mydestroy(igraph_t *graph) {
  char *c= (char*) graph;
  int i;
  for (i=0; i<sizeof(igraph_t); i++) {
    if (*c) { igraph_destroy(graph); return; }
    c++;
  }
}

(Untested, sorry.)

Best Regards,
Gabor

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 6:30 PM, Matthew Walker
<address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi Gabor, Tamas,
>
> Thanks again for your suggestions.
>
> I cannot help but ask, why isn't this approach available inside igraph?
>
> There could be an igraph_zero() function, that just zero'd the memory used
> in igraph_t.  Such a function would mean that igraph_destroy() could then be
> made safe to call on zero'd graphs.
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Matthew
>
> On 11-03-07 10:34 AM, Gábor Csárdi wrote:
>>
>> Matthew,
>>
>> there is no such function. You need to keep track of that. It is
>> actually not possible to write such a function, IMHO, because some
>> architectures do not zero out newly allocated memory. Although,
>> probably most of the do, nowadays.
>>
>> What you can do, is filling the igraph_t by zeros after you allocate
>> it, and then check whether the 'from' field is zero or not. It should
>> not be zero for a valid graph.
>>
>> Best,
>> Gabor
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 10:28 AM, Matthew Walker
>> <address@hidden>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I currently have a problem in that my program seg faults because I am
>>> calling igraph_destroy() on an uninitialized graph.
>>>
>>> Is there a function to tell whether the graph is initialized?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Matthew
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> igraph-help mailing list
>>> address@hidden
>>> http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/igraph-help
>>>
>>
>>
>
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>



-- 
Gabor Csardi <address@hidden>     UNIL DGM