Re: pics parser memory leak!

On Tue, Mar 25, 2003 at 11:26:17AM -0800, Tokushige, Darren wrote:
> found your email address on the w3c website...hope you are the right
> person...
>  
> found a memory leak in the c-based pics parser....
>
> in the file CSLabel.c:
> HTList_removeLastObject() is called in various places to free
> dynamically allocated memory from link lists.  this function is
> called in a loop designed to free the entire list.  however if you
> look at the implementation of htlist, you will see that when the
> list is created, the head node is allocated.  this node can never be
> freed using HTList_removeLastObject().
>
> to fix the leak, after each loop that calls
> HTList_removeLastObject(), you need to free that head node by
> calling HTList_delete(me->???) where ??? is the list you are trying
> to delete.  i believe there are 10 instances of this call in
> CSLabel.c.

Would you mind submitting a patch or a replacement CSLabel.c ? I
believe you are more likely to repair this accurately.

> why htlist allocates this empty head node is beyond me.  to be
> honest i think the fix should really be completed in htlist, but
> since so many other programs rely on this, i fixed it in CSLabel.c.

yeah, that would be scary to update.
I guess the nice thing is that the head node can be a subclass of a
list element if you want to keep more data about the list, like
indexes or that sort of thing.

> anyways, just wanted to pass on the info...
> darren.

Indeed. Thank you kindly.
-- 
-eric

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