[LLVMdev] MemoryBuffer

[OvermindDL1]

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 2:32 PM, Chris Lattner <clattner at apple.com> wrote:
>
> On Sep 24, 2009, at 1:23 PM, OvermindDL1 wrote:
>
>> I was writing something using MemoryBuffer, and while looking through
>> its code I came across line 59:
>>  assert(BufEnd[0] == 0 && "Buffer is not null terminated!");
>> I am curious if the MemoryBuffer only supports non-binary, non-null
>> embedded files, or if it supports binary as well.  I do not see
>> anything inherently not expecting binary files except for that one
>> line, so I am curious as to the purpose of that assert?
>
> Your question is difficult to understand.  MemoryBuffer doesn't care what is
> in the file.  It works fine if you have embedded nul's in the file.  It just
> requires the mapped image to have a nul at the end.

I am mostly just curious as to why it requires a nul at the end, seems
odd when specifying two pointers for a begin/end style interface.  I
am mostly just worried because a library I use returns such iterators
that work in Memory Buffer (they are const char*'s as well), but the
end pointer is one-past-the-end, and may point into invalid memory
(say if it was at the end of a virtual page), thus could cause an
access violation.  To prevent that I would need to copy it, and with a
sizable chunk of memory that it may be, can cause the program to
freeze for a sec.  It would also be nice to not require that as you
could create a MemoryBuffer that references some *part* of an existing
MemoryBuffer that does not have a nul as the defreferenced end pointer
that you are giving in it.  Mostly I just do not understand why this
restriction exists, so I am just looking for comprehension.