lint on malloc calls

[Shankar Unni]

>
>	nextentry = (entry *) malloc(sizeof(entry));
>
>Running lint -bach yields:
>
>	phone.c(61): warning: illegal pointer combination
>	phone.c(61): warning: possible pointer alignment problem

Well, one can sort of understand lint's point of view (assuming a low-IQ
lint):

   Malloc returns a "char *" (presumably that's how you declared it)
   a "char *" can *THEORETICALLY* point to the middle of a word
	(even though we know that malloc always returns appropriately
	 aligned pointers)
   
   ergo, casting it to a struct pointer could *THEORETICALLY* cause
   an alignment problem (if the struct has an alignment >= 1 word)

   (The illegal combination message is just plain dumb...)

A possible workaround to pacify your lint:

Declare malloc as

   double *malloc();

--
Shankar.

P.S. I don't know what this would do on machines in which char *'s and
double *'s have different representations and in which malloc actually
returns a char * aligned to a double boundary (believe me, I know such a
machine). But if your machine doesn't have a terminal case of pointer-
representation-itis, the above should work...