Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aiai!richard
From: richard@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: qualifications in prototypes (was Re: Problems with IBM RS6000 C compiler)
Message-ID: <3157@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 8 Aug 90 12:54:42 GMT
References: <476@mtndew.UUCP> <1893@tkou02.enet.dec.com> <386@taumet.com> <17240@haddock.ima.isc.com> <1896@tkou02.enet.dec.com> <17247@haddock.ima.isc.com>
Reply-To: richard@aiai.UUCP (Richard Tobin)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 14

>>[Can you pass an unqualified `char *' to a function whose prototype declares
>>a parameter of type `char const *'?]

The idea (presumably) is that declaring a parameter `char const *'
doesn't mean that the function *requires* the argument to be constant,
but rather promises not to change it.  Similarly with assignement; you
can assign something to a variable that promises to be more careful
with it, but need a cast if the variable might be less careful.

-- Richard
-- 
Richard Tobin,                       JANET: R.Tobin@uk.ac.ed             
AI Applications Institute,           ARPA:  R.Tobin%uk.ac.ed@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Edinburgh University.                UUCP:  ...!ukc!ed.ac.uk!R.Tobin