Re: fstrcmp: memory is not reclaimed on exit

[Paul Eggert]

On 2/16/20 12:44 PM, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
> The coding standard is wrong in this area. The practice breaks testing.

Not really. It breaks some tests, which are arguably testing the wrong thing. 
Any tests that check for whether all memory is freed just before exit, are 
testing for a property that the GNU Coding Standards say is not a desirable 
property.

The underlying issue is whether we should complicate code to simplify tests, or 
vice versa. The GCS say that in this area we should keep the code simple, 
possibly at the expense of the tests. This is not inherently the wrong decision; 
it's merely choosing a point in a design space that involves simplicity, 
efficiency, correctness, testability, etc. and where there are several 
reasonable choices.