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From: rgh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: Re: mixing pointers and arrays (arra - (nf)
Message-ID: <270@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 20-Aug-83 05:49:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.270
Posted: Sat Aug 20 05:49:47 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Aug-83 06:20:01 EDT
Lines: 22

#R:gatech:-37800:inmet:5000004:000:602
inmet!rgh    Aug 19 08:46:00 1983

    The basic problem with passing arrays as values in C is that in
general you don't know how big the array is.  Consider:

	int a[20];		/* here you know */
	extern int b[];		/* no telling */
	f(c)
	    int c[];		/* can't tell */
	{
	}


    Pascal treats the length of an array as part of its type.  However,
this is everybody's least favorite feature of the language, since it
makes general array-handling subroutines impossible to write.
    The length of a structure is determinable from its declaration, so this
problem doesn't arise for structures.

					Randy Hudson
					{harpo,ima}!inmet!rgh