Re: Integer overflow in operator new

[David Daney <ddaney at avtrex dot com>]

Andrew Pinski wrote:
> On 4/6/07, Karl Chen <quarl@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> > Regarding negatives, I believe 'operator new' takes a size_t,
> > which is unsigned, but if it were signed it, the multiplication
> > would indeed be in danger of creating a negative.
>
> Actually if it was signed, the whole result would be undefined if
> there was an overflow.  Oh by the way unsigned integers don't
> overflow, they wrap.  I think the best solution is allow the programer
> do the correct thing and have operator new assume what it gets as
> being right.

Is that an argument for doing nothing?  I couldn't tell.

One could argue that issuing some type of diagnostic (either at compile 
time or run time) would be helpful for people that don't remember to 
write correct code 100% of the time.

David Daney