VistaIOMalloc(3)

💖 VistaIOMalloc(3) — the memory girlies' manual page 💖

okay bestie, so this is a page from the Library Functions Manual, and it's literally all about memory allocation. no cap. it's giving malloc but make it VistaIO. let's get into it 🫶

---

✨ NAME ✨

VistaIOMalloc, VistaIOCalloc, VistaIORealloc, VistaIOFree — memory allocation functions. yes queen, the whole squad 🎀

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

VistaIOPointer VistaIOMalloc (size_t size);

VistaIOPointer VistaIOCalloc (size_t num, size_t elsize);

VistaIOPointer VistaIORealloc (VistaIOPointer ptr, size_t size);

void VistaIOFree (VistaIOPointer ptr);

four functions, four signatures, all exact, all slay 💅

---

🦋 ARGUMENTS 🦋

• size — the number of bytes you want, bestie. that's it, that's the vibe.
• num — how many array elements you're asking for.
• elsize — how big one array element is, in bytes.
• ptr — a pointer to your old storage, OR a pointer to the block of storage that's getting freed. either way, it's the pointer in question 👑

---

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

VistaIOMalloc

returns a pointer to a block of storage of at least size bytes. but here's the tea: it returns NULL if size is zero. zero bytes = no block, periodt.

VistaIOCalloc

allocates space for num array elements, each of size elsize, and initializes that space to zero bits. squeaky clean ✨. and like VistaIOMalloc, it returns NULL if you ask it to allocate zero space. zero is zero, no notes.

VistaIORealloc

changes a block of storage (the one ptr points to) to be of size size — and yeah, it might literally move it somewhere else, that's just how she rolls. if it needs to, it allocates a new block at a different location, copies the old contents (or as much as will fit 😭) into the new block, and then frees the old block. moving on up, main character energy.

• if ptr is NULL, VistaIORealloc allocates the new storage without copying old contents — like, it's just calling VistaIOMalloc. same thing, different name.
• if size is zero, it frees the storage pointed to by ptr and returns NULL.

VistaIOFree

frees storage, so it can be reused later. recycling queen 🌈. and if ptr is NULL, VistaIOFree has no effect — it just... does nothing. no drama, no crash, iconic.

---

⭐ RETURN VALUES ⭐

VistaIOMalloc, VistaIOCalloc, and VistaIORealloc each return a pointer to the allocated storage. every single time. that's the whole return value.

VistaIOFree does not return a value. it's a void, bestie, she gives nothing back and that's fine 🙈

---

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

malloc(3), VistaIONew(3), VistaIONewString(3), VistaIOError(3),

(yes the comma is staying, i don't make the rules 💀)

---

💀 DIAGNOSTICS 💀

if there is insufficient memory to allocate a requested block, VistaIOMalloc, VistaIOCalloc, or VistaIORealloc will terminate by calling VistaIOError(3) with the message ``Memory allocation failure''.

⚠️ bestie. this is not a soft little "oops, returned NULL" moment. it terminates. it calls VistaIOError(3). you do not pass go, you do not collect two hundred dollars. plan accordingly 🫶

---

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Art Pope <pope@cs.ubc.ca>

Adaption to vistaio: Gert Wollny <gw.fossdev@gmail.com>

thank you for your service, legends 🙌

---

🧚 ACKNOWLEDGMENT 🧚

these functions and this manual page are based on similar ones included in the X Toolkit Intrinsics, which is Copyright 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, Massachusetts. shoutout to the ancestors of this code, fr fr 🎀

---

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this was VistaIO Version 1.2.14, dated 3 June 1994 — yes, 1994, she's vintage and she still hits different 💖✨ go forth and allocate responsibly, mwah 💅🦋