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Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!pacbell.com!ames!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.std.c
Subject: Re: (void *) to function pointer
Message-ID: <14795@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 9 Jan 91 09:06:23 GMT
References: <1991Jan9.000809.9152@brolga.cc.uq.oz.au>
Followup-To: comp.lang.c
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 28

In article <1991Jan9.000809.9152@brolga.cc.uq.oz.au> gottsc@citrus.citr.uq.oz.au (John Gottsc) writes:
>can anybody tell me what the ANSI C standards state regarding conversion
>between a (void *) and a function pointer (i.e. is this type of
>conversion possible in ANSI C)? 

A conforming implementation need not support interconversion of void*
and function pointers.  There are good reasons for not requiring this.

>Also, could somebody please tell me what the status of the ANSI C standards
>are - are the standards finalised yet?

ANSI Std X3.159-1989 was approved over a year ago.

The corresponding ISO standard (technically identical to X3.159)
has, I think, been approved; however, there are some "normative
addenda" to the ISO standard still being prepared.  The British-
sponsored addendum would merely clarify some points without
making any technical change to ISO/ANSI C; Danish- and Japanese-
sponsored addenda propose to make various technical changes for
the sake of additional accommodation of varying international
locales (native language etc.).  One can only hope that they will
be fully-compatible extensions to the existing standards, but
since it is a political game, common sense may not prevail.

NIST, as usual recently, issued a FIPS for C containing extremely
ill-advised additional specifications beyond ANSI X3.159-1989.
So far as I can tell, they didn't bother to consult with X3J11
beforehand.