Path: utzoo!dciem!array!colin
From: colin@array.UUCP (Colin Plumb)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Operations on pointers to void.
Message-ID: <482@array.UUCP>
Date: 11 Aug 90 00:16:23 GMT
References: <1990Aug9.231614.5196@basho.uucp> <1990Aug10.165644.9238@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: Array Systems Computing, Inc., Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
Lines: 17

In article <1990Aug10.165644.9238@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
> Subscripting *is* pointer arithmetic.  Apart from passing them around and
> comparing them to each other and to NULL, there is *nothing* you can do
> with `void *'s except convert them to another kind of pointer.  No
> dereferencing, no arithmetic.  They are containers for other kinds of
> pointers, not pointers themselves.

Exactly.  A void * can be assigned, passed, returned, and compared.  Period.

> Many compilers, especially old ones with `void *' hastily kludged in,
> treat `void *' much like `char *'.  That is a compiler bug.

Actually, gcc documents its permission of pointer arithmetic on void *
as a feature.  I disagree.  Certainly -ansi -pedantic should complain
about the extension.
-- 
	-Colin