proper semantics for returning a character string?

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Thu, 20 Apr 2006, Tito wrote:

> char *map_uid_to_username(int uid) {
>   	struct passwd *pwd;
>   	pwd = getpwuid(uid;
>   	if (pwd) return pwd->pw_name;
>  	bb_error_msg("uknown uid %d", uid);
>   	return NULL;
> }
>
>     The return value may point to static area (when?), and may be
> overwritten by
>        subsequent calls to getpwent(), getpwnam(), or getpwuid().
>
> So in this case no memory leak?
>
> Tito

i'm not sure.  the way i read the man page, when you call getpwuid(),
you have no control over how it's allocating the space for the
resulting structure so that routine really *could* be allocating a new
one on every call, no?  i don't see how you can control that.

in any event, see my recently-posted proposal.

rday