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From: davidsen@sungod.crd.ge.com (ody)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Uninitialized externals and statics.
Message-ID: <1786@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Date: 21 Aug 89 15:28:15 GMT
References: <2128@infmx.UUCP> <10764@smoke.BRL.MIL> <478.nlhp3@oracle.nl> <1989Aug19.053711.7462@twwells.com>
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Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: General Electric Corp. R&D, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 15


  Although the proposed ANSI standard (3.5.7 line 20) calls for
initialization to zero, cast to the appropriate type (my paraphrase) for
arithmetic and pointer types, virtually all implementations initialize
to zero (without cast) in the absense of explicit initialization.

  For reasons of "real" portability (what works vs. what any standard
says) I recommend initializing all float and pointer types explicitly if
you what to be sure code will work on machines in which float zero and
NULL are not "all bits off." This will not in any way may your code less
portable to environments which implement the proposed standard, but will
minimize your "learning experiences."
	bill davidsen		(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM)
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"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me