What's the point of malloc(0)?

Question

I just saw this code:

artist = (char *) malloc(0);

...and I was wondering why would one do this?

Answer 1

Its actually quite useful, and (obviously IMHO), the allowed behavior of returning a NULL pointer is broken. A dynamic pointer is useful not only for what it points at, but also the fact that it's address is unique. Returning NULL removes that second property. All of the embedded mallocs I program (quite frequently in fact) have this behavior.