Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!apollo!mrst!sdti!turner
From: turner@sdti.SDTI.COM (Prescott K. Turner)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: const in C++ vs. const in C
Summary: usable in constant expressions
Keywords: const
Message-ID: <463@sdti.SDTI.COM>
Date: 22 Jun 89 14:24:00 GMT
References: <2742@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Reply-To: turner@sdti.UUCP (0006-Prescott K. Turner, Jr.)
Organization: Software Development Technologies, Sudbury MA
Lines: 20

In article <2742@ssc-vax.UUCP> dmg@ssc-vax.UUCP (David Geary) writes:
>
>  I've heard before that const is better supported in C++
>than in C.  Is this true?  If so, why?

It's because in C++ you can define a name to be const and it is then
usable in contexts which require a constant.  For example,
      const int size = 5;
      int a[size];
Also if you don't take the address of the const object, cfront can optimize
its storage out of existence.

In order for this to be easy to use, declaring something const implies that
it has internal linkage.  So it can be initialized in a header file making
its value is available to every module which needs it.
--
Prescott K. Turner, Jr.
Software Development Technologies, Inc.
P.O. Box 366, Sudbury, MA 01776 USA         (508) 443-5779
UUCP: ...{harvard,mit-eddie}!sdti!turner    Internet: turner@sdti.sdti.com