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From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Finding Available Length Of Strings...
Message-ID: <4231@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>
Date: 10 Nov 90 09:27:17 GMT
References: <16752@hydra.gatech.EDU> <16758@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
Lines: 19

In article <16758@hydra.gatech.EDU>, gt4512c@prism.gatech.EDU (BRADBERRY,JOHN L) writes:
> Just a note of clarification here...I am talking about a character array
> and I am looking for a solution (not the obvious '...add another length
> parameter')...I would like the function to be able to 'figure it out!'

When you pass an array to a function, the function gets a pointer.
Even ANSI C has no way of declaration a function argument that really
_is_ an array.  The syntax "SomeType an_arg[]" declares a pointer.
That pointer looks just like any other pointer into that array.
The function can't even find the _beginning_ of the array, let alone
the end.  (Not portably, at any rate.)

If you want your function to receive things like one-dimensional arrays
in Smalltalk or Lisp or Pop or Algol 68 or PL/I, then you'll have to
implement that data structure yourself using C primitives.

-- 
The problem about real life is that moving one's knight to QB3
may always be replied to with a lob across the net.  --Alasdair Macintyre.