Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Zero Length Arrays Allowed in C Standard?
Message-ID: <11759@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 6 Dec 89 20:20:49 GMT
References: <2298@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> <11715@smoke.BRL.MIL> <480@codonics.COM> <1989Dec2.210042.12668@twwells.com> <8129@cg-atla.UUCP> <1989Dec5.112553.24087@twwells.com> <11963@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <8141@cg-atla.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 19

In article <8141@cg-atla.UUCP> fredex@cg-atla.UUCP (Fred Smith) writes:
-One reason that comes to mind is a conflict with the way arrays 
-relate to pointers. For normal arrays, simply mentioning its name
-in a program evaluates to the address of the array. Now what is this
-address??  It is the address of the first element of the array! If
-the thing is declared as zero length, what do you get when you
-mention its address ??  I dunno, haven't tried it yet (I intend to),
-but I bet it makes no sense, whatever it is!

It makes perfect sense.

-Even if it does evaluate to some address somewhere, it certainly is
-not an address at which one would dare to store data

This is no different from usual -- you're not allowed to store beyond
the bounds of ANY array.

The main problem is that two distinct 0-length objects might have
the same address.  This bothers some people.