[Xen-devel] libxl and malloc failure (Re: Current LibXL Status)

[Ian Jackson <Ian.Jackson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrew Cooper writes ("Re: [Xen-devel] Current LibXL Status"):
> There really is a show-stopper, which I have stated before.
> 
> Languages such as OCaml use -ENOMEM as a hint to run the garbage
> collector some more.  I expect Haskell is the same.

This cannot possibly be true (if what you mean is that they use
ENOMEM[1] from malloc as such an indication).  It would make it
impossible to write a correct binding to a normal C library.

Typically C library which calls malloc will do so in the middle of its
execution.  Even if the library returns the resulting error up as
a distinguishable error code, you can't just make the same library
call again - it may have done half its work but not the other half.

So I think you must be wrong.

Ian.

[1] NB that when malloc fails there is no -ENOMEM, only ENOMEM.

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