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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.std.unix
Subject: Re: Is there a standard prototype for `execvp'?
Message-ID: <17634@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 4 Feb 91 19:39:21 GMT
References: <17528@cs.utexas.edu> <17573@cs.utexas.edu> <17574@cs.utexas.edu>
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Submitted-by: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)

In article <17574@cs.utexas.edu> donn@hpfcrn.fc.hp.com (Donn Terry) writes:
>	int execvp (const char *file, char *const argv[]);
>
>It was generally agreed during balloting that what really was wanted
>was "const char * const argv[]".  However, ANSI C disagrees: that's
>a syntax error!

This puzzled me a bit, since that is *not* a syntax error, but a bit of
private correspondence with Donn cleared it up.  The problem is not that
the declaration is illegal, but that `char *[]' and `const char *const []'
are not assignment-compatible -- the "inner" const does not magically get
ignored like the "outer" one -- so this would break backward compatibility.
-- 
"Maybe we should tell the truth?"      | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
"Surely we aren't that desperate yet." |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry

Volume-Number: Volume 22, Number 106