As pointed out by Guy, we should probably explain why the gulong -> size_t cast is 'safe'

svn path=/trunk/; revision=29458

1 files changed, 8 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/epan/except.c b/epan/except.c
index 8529a8a24a..83d8b95846 100644
--- a/epan/except.c
+++ b/epan/except.c
@@ -139,6 +139,14 @@ void except_deinit(void)
 static int init_counter;
 static void unhandled_catcher(except_t *);
 static void (*uh_catcher_ptr)(except_t *) = unhandled_catcher;
+/* We need this 'size_t' cast due to a glitch in GLib where g_malloc was prototyped 
+ * as 'gpointer g_malloc (gulong n_bytes)'. This was later fixed to the correct prototype 
+ * 'gpointer g_malloc (gsize n_bytes)'. In Wireshark we use the latter prototype 
+ * throughout the code. We can get away with this even with older versions of GLib by 
+ * adding a '(void *(*)(size_t))' cast whenever we refer to g_malloc. The only platform 
+ * supported by Wireshark where this isn't safe (sizeof size_t != sizeof gulong) is Win64. 
+ * However, we _always_ bundle the newest version of GLib on this platform so 
+ * the size_t issue doesn't exists here. Pheew.. */
 static void *(*allocator)(size_t) = (void *(*)(size_t)) g_malloc;
 static void (*deallocator)(void *) = g_free;
 static struct except_stacknode *stack_top;