[Info-vax] calloc fails with access violation

[JF Mezei]

Jose Cuevas wrote:

> In the above code I can printf the pointer sIn and do a strlen without
> problems,

strlen counts bytes until it encounters a null character. It may run
fine but return some gigantic number.

The COBOL strings passed do not contain a null to indicate end of
string. you "strlen" would work only because somewhere in accessible
memory of the process, the strlen would encounter a null character.

The C program must either be told explicitely (hardcoded or though an
argument) the size of a string, or you must pass the COBO strings BY
DESCRIPTOR and have the C program expect a descriptor structure at which
point it can examine the structure to find the length of the string
(allocated length) and the address where it is located.