[Grml] Virus scanner

Mark or2uvma02 at sneakemail.com
Tue Dec 20 00:20:45 CET 2005


> Checking for "enough memory" isn't that easy. Detecting this in a
> userspace program like clamav won't really work.

Well, "enough memory to run this program" is not the right question, and
you are right, impossible to solve in general.  That's not how things
work though.

A well written program (in user space or anywhere) checks the return
codes for each memory allocation (new pointer).  When it gets an error,
it uses exceptions or some other logic to propagate up to an error
handler.  Ultimately the user should see something.

Programmers often write code that has no error handlers, doesn't check
return codes, NULL pointers, etc.  It's not that out of memory is
unsolvable.  It's that programmers don't exercise error discipline in
their code.

To just hang dead is very, very bad behavior.  One expects that from
Windows, not Linux.

Mark



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