Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Initializing arrays of char
Message-ID: <1990Oct9.170042.7429@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Oct4.152756.6850@micrognosis.co.uk> <15674@csli.Stanford.EDU> <26860@mimsy.umd.edu> <1009@nlsun1.oracle.nl>
Date: Tue, 9 Oct 90 17:00:42 GMT

In article <1009@nlsun1.oracle.nl> bengsig@oracle.nl (Bjorn Engsig) writes:
>Since K&R1 seems to be clear, how come the compilers accepted it?  Or
>does K&R1 actually hide it somewhere?

It is worth remembering that K&R1 was obsolete in details very quickly.
For example, it does not mention structure assignment or enums, both of
which were de facto part of old C.  People implementing old-C compilers
had to work fairly hard to figure out exactly what language they were
implementing.  (Harbison & Steele, the best pre-ANSI reference manual,
came out of one company's effort to pin down an exact definition of C.)
Various little extensions became common practice without ever being
blessed by K&R1.
-- 
Imagine life with OS/360 the standard  | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
operating system.  Now think about X.  |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry