I am trying to port a C (not C++) program from GCC to Visual Studio.
The GCC specific function strdupa() is widely used in this program. Is there any way to implement this function for Visual C.
PS. I understand that it uses alloca() and it is unsafe. But it works very well on GCC now and I think it is safer to implement the same function in one place then change the logic of program. I also don't want performance to decrease.
I'd implement it as a macro:
#define strdupa(a) strcpy((char*)alloca(strlen(a) + 1), a)
That way it is not in a function and so the alloca'd string won't be freed prematurely.
Note: From man:
On many systems
alloca()
cannot be used inside the list of arguments of a function call, because the stack space reserved byalloca()
would appear on the stack in the middle of the space for the function arguments.
… i.e. (from "GNU C Library Reference Manual"):
Do not use
alloca
inside the arguments of a function call—you will get unpredictable results, … . An example of what to avoid isfoo(x, alloca(4), y)
.