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From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: BSD bzero() & NULL
Message-ID: <14466@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 15 Nov 90 18:44:59 GMT
References: <AbEJW8e00VQfE4N0I3@andrew.cmu.edu> <1990Nov15.000129.27402@Think.COM> <RJC.90Nov15073451@brodie.uk.ac.ed.cstr>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 15

In article <RJC.90Nov15073451@brodie.uk.ac.ed.cstr> rjc@uk.ac.ed.cstr (Richard Caley) writes:
>In article <1990Nov15.000129.27402@Think.COM> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
>    Bzero can only be expected to work as expected
>    when the first argument is a pointer to an integral type.
>Just as a perverse question inspired by too much bad coffee, is this
>the case?

Yes, or to an aggregate whose (possibly recursive) scalar members are
all of integral type.

>Does the standard demand that the bit pattern for then integer 0 be
>`all zeros'.

Yup, or at least it is required to be indistinguishable from such a
representation so far as a strictly conforming program could determine.