Re: Do we want a xmalloc or similar function in the Backend?

On Tuesday, June 19, 2012 07:35:53 PM Robert Haas wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 10:17 AM, Andres Freund <andres(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com>
wrote:
> > There are 70+ calls of malloc in the backend in the form of
> >
> > type* foo = malloc(sizeof(...));
> > if(!foo)
> > elog(ERROR, "could not allocate memory");
> >
> > which is a bit annoying to write at times. Would somebody argue against
> > introducing a function that does the above named xmalloc() or
> > malloc_or_die()?
>
> I can't even find 70 malloc calls in the entire backend, let alone 70
> with that pattern. Still, I don't think malloc_or_error (not die)
> would be a bad idea.
$ ack '\bmalloc\s*\(' src/backend/|wc -l
70

10-15 or so of those are comments.

The 70+ came from me running on some development branch with commitfest
patches applied...

> But the error should definitely be written as:
>
> ereport(ERROR,
> (errcode(ERRCODE_OUT_OF_MEMORY),
> errmsg("out of memory")));
>
> ...not elog.
Yes, definitely. Currently some of those locations (e.g. in xlog.c) are only
protected by Asserts...

Andres
--
Andres Freund http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services