[BusyBox] Issue with strings (1.00-pre10)

[Larry Doolittle]

Guys -

>   - why is the xmalloc is for "n+1"

strings.c wants to hold the first n qualifying letters of
each string in a buffer.  This buffer needs to have n+1 bytes
allocated, so there is space for a trailing '\0'.  This '\0'
makes it easy to print out those n bytes with
      printf("%s", string);
If there were a compelling interest to avoid that trailing '\0',
you could replace the printf with
      for (j=0; j<n; j++) putchar(string[j]);

> (when we do an n-=1 two lines down)?

A possibly misguided attempt to save time and/or space
when comparing i against n in the body of the loop.

>   - why does the error appear on every line, and not just the first?

Because the memory is re-used starting at the beginning for
every (potential) string.  Paraphrasing (in the OTBS):
  do {
      c=fgetc(file);
      if(ISSTR(c)) {
          /* complications that make the next two lines conditional */
          string[i]=c;
          i++;
      } else {
          i=0;
      }
  } while(c!=EOF);

> Does xmalloc memset/bzero the malloc'd mem?  If not, then that is
> likely your problem.

It does not.
     string[n]='\0';
should definitely not be commented out.  That is what sets
byte n+1 (remember, the first byte is string[0]) to zero to
terminate the string that gets passed to printf.

     - Larry