FreeTDS Development Group

[jklowden AT schemamania.org]

On Wed, Aug 30, 2006 at 03:55:06PM +0200, ZIGLIO, Frediano, VF-IT wrote:
> > 
> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2006 at 05:26:36PM +0200, ZIGLIO, Frediano, 
> > VF-IT wrote:
> > > I also noted that in code there is some code to use a 
> > static allocated
> > > buffer if possible (bcp if I reminds correctly), perhaps 
> > something like
> > 
> > I think we sometimes use  DSTR structures where static allocations or 
> > ordinary char* would suffice.  I can't think of any reason to use a 
> > "statically allocated" DSTR.  
> 
> I think we agree to add a length field. 

I want to say clearly: I don't understand why we use DSTR.  I think it
makes the code opaque.  I don't see the advantage.  In particular, I think
it's made the construction of a login packet harder.  

However, you've thought about this, and you're looking to improve
DSTR.  If you want my opinion, I think less indirection is better, 
regardless of difficulty of initialization.  So I guess I like 
option #1.  Except that I'd put the length first, the way TDS does, the
way Pascal does.  Then it just becomes a counted string.  That's more 
robust; it's harder to overwrite your length with too-long data.  

If you're going to add a length, maybe call it 'size', instead?  And 
you might want to consider keeping a capacity:

struct DSTR_STRUCT { 
        size_t capacity, size;
        char *data;
};
typedef struct DSTR_STRUCT DSTR;

Regards, 

--jkl