FreeTDS Development Group

["Lowden, James K" <LowdenJK AT bernstein.com>]

> From: Craig A. Berry [mailto:craigberry AT mac.com]
> Sent: May 4, 2003 11:26 PM
>
> D0:[CRAIG.FREETDS-0_62_DEV_20030503.SRC.TDS]TDSSTRING.C;1, 
> which uses the type "pointer to struct DSTR_CHAR".  
...
> 
> DSTR
> tds_dstr_set(DSTR * s, char *src)
> {
>         if (*(char **) s != tds_str_empty)
>                 free(*(char **) s);
>         *(char **) s = src;
>         return *s;
> }
> 
> 
> I guess I don't understand the purpose of casting the 
> left-hand side of "*(char **) s = src;" 

Where is DSTR_CHAR defined?  I find only a forward declaration in tds.h.
I've looked in unixodbc and on my Win32 box:

$ grep DSTR_CHAR include/* src/*/*.c win32/*
include/tds.h:struct DSTR_CHAR;
include/tds.h:typedef struct DSTR_CHAR *DSTR;

I can't even explain how the above compiles.  That doesn't prevent me from
thinking it's ugly, and afaik "free(*(char **) s);" is identical to
"free(s);" in all cases, as far as the compiler and free store are
concerned.  

There must be a better way to do this than casting the living daylights out
of it....

--jkl


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