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From: ark@alice.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: sizeof "string"?  multi-line macro usage?
Message-ID: <5787@alice.uUCp>
Date: Sun, 13-Jul-86 20:43:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: alice.5787
Posted: Sun Jul 13 20:43:25 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 14-Jul-86 07:25:13 EDT
References: <343@vu-vlsi.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 21

re: is sizeof("...") legal?

> This worked great when
> compiled on Pyramid C, VAX VMS C, and Lattice C on a PC.  Then I ran into the
> Regulus C compiler (Regulus 4.2C) which is truly brain-damaged in many
> respects; as far as I can tell, its sizeof returns a random value when given
> a string.  So is it just Regulus that's screwed up ... ?

If you want your code to work on a particular compiler,
then the language definition doesn't matter if that compiler
doesn't accept it.  Thus, although K&R says:

	A string has type ``array of characters'' ...  (p. 181)

and

	When [sizeof is] applied to an array, the result
	is the total number of bytes in the array.

and thus one should conclude that sizeof("...") is legal,
that doesn't do you a bit of good if your compiler doesn't like it.