Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!sdrc!thor!scjones
From: scjones@thor.UUCP (Larry Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Functions within structures
Keywords: structures
Message-ID: <203@thor.UUCP>
Date: 14 Nov 90 01:04:34 GMT
References: <2203@abcom.ATT.COM> <1990Nov10.155153.20639@chinet.chi.il.us> <14431@smoke.brl.mil>
Organization: SDRC, Cincinnati
Lines: 26

In article <14431@smoke.brl.mil>, gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes:
> [ about whether "(*pf)() or (pf)() is more correct ]
> 
> Actually the second one is more "theoretically" correct.  The function
> designator in the first expression is automatically converted to a
> pointer to the function; the second form is already that way.

That depends on which theory you subscribe to.  In classic C, you called
a function -- there was no automatic conversion to a pointer -- and the
first form was thus "theoretically" correct.  The second form was, at
least for some compilers, "completely" wrong -- they refused to generate
code when presented with that construct.

Of course, we all know that you use the address to call a function so
it makes much more sense to say that a call is made using a pointer to
the function and having the name of a function decay into a function
pointer like the name of an array decays into a pointer to the first
element.  That's precisely what X3J11 did, although both decays were
generalize to expressions of the specified type rather than special
casing names.
----
Larry Jones                         UUCP: uunet!sdrc!thor!scjones
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