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From: augustss@chalmers.UUCP (Lennart Augustsson)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: Standard for union initializatio
Message-ID: <225@chalmers.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Feb-85 03:43:47 EST
Article-I.D.: chalmers.225
Posted: Fri Feb  1 03:43:47 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 4-Feb-85 03:37:21 EST
References: <137@ISM780B.UUCP> <11143@watmath.UUCP>
Reply-To: augustss@chalmers.UUCP (Lennart augustsson)
Distribution: net.lang.c
Organization: Dept. of CS, Chalmers, Sweden
Lines: 35

In article <11143@watmath.UUCP> kpmartin@watmath.UUCP (Kevin Martin) writes:
>...
>>>
>>>        union   {
>>>                int i;
>>>                float x;
>>>                char *str;
>>>        } ixstr = { , 3.14, };
>>>
>>>if you want it to start off as a float, etc.
>>>
>>>Note that:
>>>1. it is (almost) isomorphous to a struct initialization,
>>>2. it also works nicely for arrays of unions.
>...
>"Intelligent idea"??? This is just another accident waiting to happen!
>This looks ok for a nice short example like this, but frequently, the
>union's definition and initialization are far apart (and maybe in different
>source files). This makes it easy to add another union element, and
>inadvertantly screw up the initializers royally without as much as a
>peep from the compiler.
>
>The first-element rule is a reasonable default, and there have been far
>better suggestions than the above to select another element.
>                    Kevin Martin, UofW Software Development Group.

Doesn't the same argument hold for structures too?  Do you want to change
the initialization of them?  I think the original suggestion is quite
reasonable.

-- 
Any resemblance of the opinions above to real opinions, living or dead,
is purely coincidential.
		Lennart Augustsson
		{seismo,philabs,decvax}!mcvax!enea!chalmers!augustss