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From: rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: What machines core dump on deref of NULL?
Message-ID: <2706@litchi.bbn.com>
Date: 27 Jun 90 13:58:24 GMT
References: <444@mtndew.UUCP> <31079@cup.portal.com> <2389@aix.aix.kingston.ibm.com> <13226@smoke.BRL.MIL> <2392@aix.aix.kingston.ibm.com>
Followup-To: comp.lang.c
Organization: BBN Systems and Technology, Inc.
Lines: 20

In <2392@aix.aix.kingston.ibm.com> rlc@aix.aix.kingston.ibm.com (Roger Collins) writes:
|To give another example of this situation, almost all UNIX systems
|initialize .bss to zero.  This causes uninitialized global and static
|variables to be initialized to zero by default.  Many, many programs,
|including System V commands, depend on this fact.  They assume
|uninitialized global and static variables are initialized to zero
|even though the C language explicitly says the values are undetermined.

This is totally and completely wrong.

Static data is guaranteed to be initialized to zero.  See, for example, K&R
2nd edition, page 219 and page 86.

Gee, I hope you're not in the compiler or OS group. :-)

Followups to comp.lang.c
	/r$
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