Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!smoke.cs.toronto.edu!neat.cs.toronto.edu!moraes
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
From: moraes@cs.toronto.edu (Mark Moraes)
Subject: Re: Why is XtPointer a char *?
Message-ID: <90Sep2.190116edt.605@smoke.cs.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
References: <9009021619.AA04694@alphalpha.com>
Date: 2 Sep 90 23:02:36 GMT
Lines: 10

nazgul@alphalpha.COM (Kee Hinckley) writes:
>Wouldn't a void * make more sense and avoid a lot of casting?  Or was
>the feeling that since some compilers don't support void it was better
>to force everyone to cast and thus make the code compatible?

Worse, many pcc-based compilers will get badly confused by void *foo
(they see the declaration but don't recognize it as a pointer variable,
producing a "foo not declared" later when foo is used) -- eg.
Ultrix3.x (Vax) cc and MIPS 1.31 compilers.  Very confusing error
message when you encounter it the first time.