[U-Boot] [PATCH] part_dos: allocate sector buffer dynamically

[Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de>]

Dear Sergei Shtylyov,

In message <4DBFF300.9010906@mvista.com> you wrote:
> 
> > Can we please keep the buffer on the stack as before?
> 
>     It will be unsafe. We can't really predict the size of the buffer (unless 
> we postulate that the buffer size won't ever exceed e.g. 4K).

In which way will a buffer allocated on the stack be less safe than
one allocated using malloc()?  Changes to do things wrong (like
forgetting to free the array on return or freeing a bad pointer) are
much higher with malloc(), it seems.

>     I think using stack variables makes the code much more error prone, to the 
> point that U-Boot just crashes when the sector size happens to exceed our 
> buffer size.

This statement makes no sense to me.  Wether the sector size exceeds
the buffer size or not is in no way dependent on where or how you
allocate the buffer - be it on the stack or using malloc().

Umm... you _are_ aware that you can put dynamically sized arrays on
the stack, aren't you?

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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