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Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 20:25:26 +0000
From: Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha <strange@nsk.no-ip.org>
To: Ali Saifullah Khan <whipaz@gem.net.pk>
Cc: cdavison@nucleus.com, secprog@securityfocus.com
Subject: Re: Are bad developer libraries the problem with M$ software?
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I don't know how one can expect better and more secure code from the
community when this being a security list some post like this shows
clearly no knowledge of C.

On Fri, Nov 22, 2002 at 10:27:53PM +0500, Ali Saifullah Khan wrote:
> Here is a test done on the return of sizes by sizeof() using pointers.
> 
> #include <iostream.h>
> 
> int main(void) {
>  char *testbuff[1024];
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Read it like this: new array with 1024 elements of type pointer to char.
As a pointer occupies the natural word size (32 bits or 64bits), no wonder
you get 4*1024 (sizeof(char *) * numer_of_elements).

>  int len = sizeof(testbuff);
>  cout << len << "\n";
>  return 0;
> }

> using " int len = sizeof((char*)testbuff); "
sizeof returns the size of types. You can use it with vars (and then the
normal form is sizeof var, not sizeof(var)), but if you're changing the
type with the var with a cast, of course you'll get the size of that new
type.

Regards,
Luciano Rocha

-- 
Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.