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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!uw-june!roper
From: roper@uw-june.UUCP (Michael Roper)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: MSC 4.0 and the Twilight Zone
Message-ID: <2454@uw-june.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 3-May-87 17:10:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: uw-june.2454
Posted: Sun May  3 17:10:53 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 3-May-87 21:56:42 EDT
Organization: U of Washington, CSCI, Seattle
Lines: 48

Can anyone please explain the behavior of the following few lines of code?
It compiles without errors, and as written produces these two output lines:

<arg.U>
<arg.+>

where 'arg' is the first string entered on the command line, and '+' is
the printable representation of ^L (the symbol for female).  The two output
lines should be identical.  If the source line in main is changed from
"strcat (s, ".U");" to "strcat (s, ".X");", the expected output is produced:

<arg.X>
<arg.X>

What am I missing?

--------

#include  <stdio.h>
#include  <string.h>

do_nothing (arg_string)
char *arg_string;
{
 char  *dont_care_str;

 printf ("<%s>\n", arg_string);
 dont_care_str = strdup ("don't care");
 printf ("<%s>\n", arg_string);
}

main (argc, argv)
int argc;
char *argv[];
{
 char  *s;

 s = strdup (argv[1]);
 strcat (s, ".U");
 do_nothing (s);
}


-- 
---Michael Roper---                    *
                                       *   "Calvin, do you believe in God?"
ARPA:  roper@june.cs.washington.edu    *
UUCP:  ihnp4!uw-beaver!uw-june!roper   *  "Well...SOMEBODY is out to get me."