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Comment by mek6800d2 | Hacker News Reader

I read something about this recently, somewhere, maybe HN. Specifically, in calloc(), what is done and what should really be done if the multiplication overflows. As will happen, for example, if you try to calloc() two elements of size SIZE_MAX, when SIZE_MAX is the maximum representable unsigned integer value on the machine. So, I don't think calloc() is available or intended as a way to circumvent malloc()'s size restriction.

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I stand corrected. Initially, I thought that, even if it calloc can’t, an OS could provide a different way to obtain a pointer to a memory region that’s larger than SIZE_MAX.

However, the standard says (https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/types/size_t):

“size_t can store the maximum size of a theoretically possible object of any type (including array).”

and (https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/language/pointer):

“Pointer is a type of an object that refers to a function or an object of another type, possibly adding qualifiers. Pointer may also refer to nothing, which is indicated by the special null pointer value.”

⇒ pointers must either be null or point to an object, and objects aren’t larger than SIZE_MAX, so I think having a pointer pointing to a block larger than SIZE_MAX violates the standard.

> pointer pointing to a block larger than SIZE_MAX violates the standard.

it's simply not possible, by definition.

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