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From: wws@siemens.UUCP (William W Smith)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Who says infinite structures are impossible?
Message-ID: <225@siemens.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Jul-84 08:53:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: siemens.225
Posted: Mon Jul 23 08:53:53 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jul-84 00:38:13 EDT
Organization: Siemens RTL Princeton, NJ
Lines: 21


In the Berkeley Unix C compiler, the following declaration creates an
infinitely recursive structure:


struct x {
	int a;
	struct x { int b,c;} f;
        } s;


The compiler is more than happy to generate code for:

s.f.f.f.f.f.f.f.f.f.f.f.f.f.f.f.f.f.f.f.f.a = 727;

and, sizeof(struct x) returns 12 on a VAX.

Can anybody find a good use for this "feature?"

Bill Smith
princeton!siemens!wws