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This compliant solution defines a maximum size for the table of an acceptable range for table size as 1 to MAX_TABLE_SIZE or 256 elements. The lower bound for table size is checked against 0 to prevent malloc(0) (see MEM04-A. Do not make assumptions about the result of allocating 0 bytes. Note that the size parameter is typed as size_t and is by definition unsigned, thus, it need not be checked that it is negative (see INT01-A. Use size_t for all integer values representing the size of an object).

enum { MAX_TABLE_SIZE = 256 };

int create_table(size_t size) {
  char **table;

  if(size == 0 || size > MAX_TABLE_SIZE) {
    /* Handle invalid size */
  }

  table = malloc(size * sizeof(char *));
  if(table == NULL) {
    /* Handle error condition */
  }
  /* ... */
  return 0;
}

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Risk Assessment

Failing to enforce the limits on integer values can result in a denial of service condition.

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