Question

There are many drawbacks to using void * in C (memory related, type related, efficiency wise …). In spite of them we use them a lot for the flexibility they provide.

List the disadvantages/drawbacks using void * (and preferred solution in C – if possible).

EDIT: please go through the follwoing link: http://attractivechaos.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/using-void-in-generic-c-programming-may-be-inefficient/

Answer 1

There are no efficiency issues with void pointers. The only limitations with void pointers are:

• you cannot dereference void pointer for obvious reasons
• sizeof(void) is illegal
• you cannot perform pointer arithmetics on void pointers

However GCC assumes that sizeof(void) is 1 and allows pointer arithmetics on void pointers – see here