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From: nreadwin@micrognosis.co.uk (Neil Readwin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Initializing arrays of char
Message-ID: <1990Oct4.152756.6850@micrognosis.co.uk>
Date: 4 Oct 90 15:27:56 GMT
Sender: news@micrognosis.co.uk (News account)
Reply-To: nreadwin@micrognosis.co.uk (Neil Readwin)
Organization: Micrognosis, London, UK
Lines: 25


 Can someone tell me why the following initializer is legal inside a 
 structure, but not outside it ? Or is it a compiler bug ?

struct foo {
	char x[5];
	} bar = {"12345"};

char baz[5] = "12345";

The VMS compiler barfs on the second one with 
 %CC-W-TRUNCSTRINIT, String initializer for "baz" contains
		too many characters to fit;  truncated.
		At line number 5 in CASSIUS:[NREADWIN.TMP]ZZ.C;4.

The SunOS compiler agrees
 "zz.c", line 5: too many initializers

gcc seems quite happy with both. 

I was unable to decrypt what K&R had to say on the matter - should the null
character appended to the string count as an initializer in both cases ?

 Disclaimer: 818  Phone: +44 71 528 8282  E-mail: nreadwin@micrognosis.co.uk
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