Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Uninitialized externals and statics.
Message-ID: <10791@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 21 Aug 89 19:09:59 GMT
References: <2128@infmx.UUCP> <10764@smoke.BRL.MIL> <478.nlhp3@oracle.nl> <1989Aug19.053711.7462@twwells.com>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 11

In article <1989Aug19.053711.7462@twwells.com> bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells) writes:
>int     Array[1000] = {0};
>This sort of thing made the difference between a product that could
>be shipped on one floppy and one that required two.

The interesting thing is, the compiler is entitled to treat this exactly
the same as the non-explicit initializer case.  The difference is a side
effect of UNIX having adopted the COMMON model for extern data.  Somewhere
along the way, AT&T PCC releases started supporting DEF/REF (in effect),
without the extra cleverness that would have kept executables from turning
.BSS into .DATA.