Hi,
Can anyone guide me on the following question. What is the best practices concerning designing C library API which works with structures, in terms of memory management and initialization.
I.e. for structure "foo", which one (and why) is more preffered:
1.
struct foo* foo_create(...);
void foo_destroy(struct foo* p);
2.
void foo_init(struct foo* p);
void foo_cleanup(struct foo* p);
3. Combination of 2 & 3.
Thank you.
Unless you have a good reason for separating create from init, then "create is init" and "cleanup is destroy" is a much simpler interface.
For a start, you don't have to worry about garbage instances of foo that were allocated, but the programmer forgot to call init.
If you dance barefoot on the broken glass of undefined behaviour, you've got to expect the occasional cut.
If at first you don't succeed, try writing your phone number on the exam paper.
No, I have no such reasons. My only concern is usability and (may I call it as) "a common approach".Originally Posted by Salem
Is it alright to force clients create foo on heap? I don't know how they'll use it. I mean these use-cases:
1.
struct foo* my_foo = foo_create(...);
...
foo_destroy(my_foo)
2.
struct foo my_foo;
foo_init(&my_foo);
...
foo_cleanup(&my_foo);
I would say the second is better since then the user can choose to create the object on the stack or the heap.
It should have a return type of int or possibly bool to indicate success/failure.
Better names would be foo_create and foo_destroy.
A little inaccuracy saves tons of explanation. - H.H. Munro
