> If some software expects an <alloca.h> but the base OS does not > provide it, then is it more useful to have a devel/alloca package > which can be buildlinked which would provide it?
I'm not sure whether that can be done even in principle. I don't really understand alloca all that well, but my impression is that it works by fiddling the stack pointer, and, as such, really needs to be a compiler builtin. On some architectures, yes, stack and frame pointers may be separate and the compiler may be nice enough to generate code that tolerates a routine returning with the stack pointer moved. But that does not sound to me like anything to count on. Could someone check (and, if appropriate, correct) my understanding? /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mo...@rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
