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From: pete@valid.UUCP (Pete Zakel)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c,net.micro.pc,net.unix
Subject: Re: C'mon, guys!
Message-ID: <404@valid.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Jul-86 23:38:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: valid.404
Posted: Wed Jul  2 23:38:13 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Jul-86 01:27:43 EDT
References: <811@bu-cs.UUCP> <835@osiris.UUCP>
Organization: Valid Logic, San Jose, CA
Lines: 36
Xref: watmath net.lang.c:9709 net.micro.pc:8968 net.unix:8498

> I'm sure that this is the problem with with many programmers, but not
> all.  I just ran into a situation yesterday here at the Hospital where
> one of our programmers was falsely attributing a bug to the C compiler
> because the following declaration caused the program to die of a
> segmentation violation:
> 
> 	static char **ptrarray = {
> 		"",
> 		"str1",
> 		"str2",
> 		"etc."
> 	};
> 
> The programmer found that the alternate declaration
> 
> 	static char *ptrarray[] = {
> 		"",
> 		"etc."
> 	};
> 
> ran just fine.
> 
> (Of course there really *is* a bug in the compiler, since it let the
> original declaration through without even a peep; it's just not the bug
> imagined by the programmer.  For everyone's info, the compiler is cc on
> OSx v3.1 [Pyramid Computer Corp.] and I have suggested that the company
> be notified of this bug.  In the meantime, can anyone tell me whether
> this is a known pcc bug, or is it specific to Pyramid's cc?)
> 
> Phil Kos			  ...!decvax!decuac

Our pcc based compiler said "warning: illegal pointer combination, op ="
and "compiler error: initialization alignment error" to the first
declaration.
-- 
-Pete Zakel (..!{hplabs,amd,pyramid,ihnp4}!pesnta!valid!pete)