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From: Bruno Haible <bruno@clisp.org>
To: linux-man@vger.kernel.org
Subject: clumsy cast in dlopen.3
Date: Thu, 14 May 2026 12:56:55 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <21436742.Yz81rIOvuz@nimes> (raw)

The dlopen.3 man page contains this text:

                  *(void **) &cosine = dlsym(handle, "cos");

              This (clumsy) cast conforms with the ISO C standard and will
              avoid any compiler warnings.

However, such a cast violates the strict aliasing rules of ISO C, no?

The proper workaround is to use a union:

  union { double (*cosine) (double); void *pointer; } u;

  u.pointer = dlsym(handle, "cos");
  ...
  printf("%f\n", u.cosine(2.0));

Bruno




             reply	other threads:[~2026-05-14 11:09 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-05-14 10:56 Bruno Haible [this message]
2026-05-14 11:29 ` clumsy cast in dlopen.3 Alejandro Colomar
2026-05-15  8:35   ` AW: " Walter Harms
2026-05-15  9:56     ` Alejandro Colomar
2026-05-15 14:05       ` Martin Uecker
2026-05-15 15:15         ` Alejandro Colomar
2026-05-15 15:41         ` [PATCH v1] man/man3/dlopen.3: EXAMPLES: Simplify use of dlsym(3) Alejandro Colomar
2026-05-15 16:19           ` Bruno Haible
2026-05-15 22:51             ` Alejandro Colomar

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