Thread: Generic function for initialisation

Hello, me again!

I am trying to write a function that I will be able to use to initialise the values of any type of data. Any opinions on this function.

Cheers.

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <memory.h>

typedef struct Node NODE;

struct Node
{
	int  *pData;
	NODE *pNext;
	NODE *pPrev;
};

void init_list (void *, size_t);

int main(void)
{
	NODE *pMylist;

	if ((pMylist = (NODE *) malloc(sizeof(NODE))) == NULL)
	{
		printf("ERROR: Unable to allocate memory\n");
		exit(1);
	}

	init_list(pMylist, sizeof(NODE));

	free(pMylist);

	return 0;
}

void init_list (void *pData, size_t size)
{
	memset(pData, NULL, size);
}

Can't be done (easily)
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/q7.31.html

Setting all bits zero, which is what memset(pData, 0, size); does, doesn't guarantee that NULL pointers are really NULL pointers, or that floats are really 0.0

Ah... OK - so it is probably best to initialise each member individualy to be sure.

Thanks again Salem!