Re: PATCH: Remove unnecessary zero-initializations

[Michael Snyder <msnyder at redhat dot com>]

Andrew Cagney wrote:
> 
> > The fact that 13 files were doing it should suggest that it was
> >> intentional.  Might want to wait a bit longer while someone dregs up the
> >> history.
> >
> >
> > Not necessarily.  At one time it was required.  Then someone
> > (either Stan Shebs or John  Metzler, I forget) revamped the way
> > target vectors are created, so that it is no longer required.
> > These may either be legacy, or someone doing the initialization
> > from habit.  In any case, it's definitely not required now.
> 
> I know it was John Metzler but I don't have the details of what exactly
> he did.  Do you?

As I recall, the old method was to malloc the vector and then
explicitly initialize all the members.  The new one was to 
statically allocate it, so that only the non-zero members 
had to be initialized.  This was done so that adding new members
would be less painful.