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From: cjr@cs.bham.ac.uk (Chris Ridd <RiddCJ>)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Array bounds checking with C????
Message-ID: <990@christopher-robin.cs.bham.ac.uk>
Date: 4 Sep 90 09:59:23 GMT
References: <7611@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> <26196@mimsy.umd.edu> <988@christopher-robin.cs.bham.ac.uk> <1990Aug31.163805.11232@zoo.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: cjr@christopher-robin.UUCP (Chris Ridd <RiddCJ>)
Organization: University of Birmingham, England
Lines: 20

In article <1990Aug31.163805.11232@zoo.toronto.edu>
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:

>In article <988@christopher-robin.cs.bham.ac.uk>
cjr@christopher-robin.UUCP (Chris Ridd <RiddCJ>) writes:
>>  Why is this?  I never could figure out why accessing the first
>>element *past* the end of an array should be legal.
>
>*Accessing* it is not legal, but taking its address is.  This is arguably
>regrettable, but vast amounts of C code depend on it, and it is not a
>serious problem to implement.

  Thanks for the reminder!  I don't tend to use the technique much myself...

    Chris

-- Chris Ridd, Computer Science, Birmingham Uni, UK -- RiddCJ@Cs.Bham.Ac.Uk --

"'It's going to look pretty good, then, isn't it,' said War testily, 'the One
Horseman and Three Pedestrians of the Apocralypse.'" - Sourcery