@c Documentation of gnulib module 'alloca-opt'. The alloca-opt module provides for a function alloca() which allocates memory on the stack, where the system allows it. A memory block allocated with alloca() exists only until the function that calls alloca() returns or exits abruptly. There are a few systems where this is not possible: HP-UX systems, and some other platforms when the C++ compiler is used. On these platforms the alloca-opt module provides no replacement, just a preprocessor macro HAVE_ALLOCA. The user can #include on all platforms, and use alloca() on those platforms where the preprocessor macro HAVE_ALLOCA evaluates to true. If HAVE_ALLOCA is false, the code should use a heap-based memory allocation based on malloc() or - in C++ - 'new'. Note that the #include must be the first one after the autoconf-generated config.h. Thanks to AIX for this nice restriction!