It is possible to use _alloca() instead of fixed size stack buffer on Windows.
I believe it is not worth of trouble. These functions do not tend to be called in recursion and buffer sizes are adequate.
Mirek
It is just cleaner code and more efficient memory usage. You do not need such big buffer in most cases.
I do not believe that alloca is better code... It is longer code and it is (in general, it is perhaps not a problem here) platform/compiler specific (AFAIK).