What is alloca()? [Generated by bison from flex]

[Henry Spencer]

In article <6361 at thor.acc.stolaf.edu> mike at stolaf.edu (Mike Haertel) writes:
>>>... What does alloca() do?
>>It's a nonstandard botch (originating in some poorly-designed ancient Unix
>>systems) that some of the Gnoids are really fond of...
>I think alloca() originated in one of the early VAX BSD's.  My guess
>would be that it was invented for use implementing Franz Lisp...

It goes back farther than that.  The first occurrence I'm aware of was in
PWB circa 1977.  (PWB was a pdp11 Unix variant, sort of a neolithic ancestor
of System V.)  It showed up in SCCS (PWB's biggest, uh, contribution to the
user interface) in particular.
-- 
"Where is D.D. Harriman now,   |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
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