Path: utzoo!attcan!sobmips!uunet!samsung!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!decwrl!shelby!portia!forel!karish
From: karish@forel.stanford.edu (Chuck Karish)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix
Subject: Re: cc mishandles *void?
Message-ID: <6707@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 16 Nov 89 14:08:48 GMT
References: <1239@atha.AthabascaU.CA>
Sender: USENET News System <news@Portia.stanford.edu>
Reply-To: karish@forel.stanford.edu (Chuck Karish)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Mindcraft, Inc.
Lines: 25

In article <1239@atha.AthabascaU.CA> lyndon@cs.AthabascaU.CA
(Lyndon Nerenberg) wrote:
>While compiling bash under Ultrix 2.3 I ran across an interesting
>piece of C that chokes cc(1) under Ultrix 2.3, but compiles fine
>under SunOS3.5 and under Ultrix 2.3 using gcc.
>
>The idea of passing parameters as 'void *mumble' seems a bit
>questionable. Is the compiler correct to complain about this?
>Can someone try it under 3.1 and let me know what it says?

`void *' is the correct type for generic storage under ANSI C.
malloc(), calloc(), and realloc() return pointers to void.
The pointers are normally cast to a specific data type before
use.  There's nothing wrong with having a function allocate
generic storage and pass its address to another function.

The Portable C Compiler recognizes void as a pseudo-type, for
functions that don't return a value.  It does not recognize it
as a storage type.

gcc supports the ANSI usage.  The MIPS C compiler on the DS3100
under 3.1 does not.  

	Chuck Karish		karish@mindcraft.com
	(415) 323-9000		karish@forel.stanford.edu