Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!iuvax!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!marque!lakesys!chad
From: chad@lakesys.UUCP (D. Chadwick Gibbons)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: BSS data segment
Keywords: BSS unix dos
Message-ID: <876@lakesys.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jul 89 11:49:50 GMT
Reply-To: chad@lakesys.UUCP (D. Chadwick Gibbons)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Lake Systems - Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Lines: 17


	I've seen the BSS data segment mentioned in several books.  Some
even have indepth sections describing how to create
efficently-initalizing programs by taking advantage of this feature.
However, I'm wondering if this is a C feature, or a phenonmenon of the
UNIX/MS-DOS environments.  It's extremely convient to have a section of
code auto-initialized to zero by the run-time system...perhaps a large
amount of global pointers, such as:

char *ptr1, *ptr2, *ptr3.......*ptr999, *ptr1000;

main();

etc, etc.  Things are thus auto-set to NULL, and the need for
initialization elsewhere does not exist.  Handy, indeed.
-- 
D. Chadwick Gibbons, chad@lakesys.lakesys.com, ...!uunet!marque!lakesys!chad