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From: mason@gargoyle.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: default initialization of static and extern
Message-ID: <675@gargoyle.UChicago.EDU>
Date: Wed, 3-Jun-87 15:39:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.675
Posted: Wed Jun  3 15:39:55 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Jun-87 02:03:56 EDT
References: <158@delftcc.UUCP> <1070@viper.Lynx.MN.ORG> <1297@genrad.UUCP>
Reply-To: mason@gargoyle.uchicago.edu.UUCP (Tony Mason)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 17
Keywords: C, NULL, portability

In article <1297@genrad.UUCP> rep@genrad.UUCP (Pete Peterson) writes:
>K&R claims (in at least 3 places) that externs and statics are
>guaranteed to be initialized to zero in the absence of any explicit
>initializations. "The C Programming Language -- Reference Manual" by
>Ritchie as distributed with the BSD documentation makes the same statement.
>
>Are there really compilers which violate this specification?

Sure are.  The Whitesmith's Compiler used to do this (it was Version 6 based
and explicitly stated that it deviated from K&R in this respect.)  I have
never seen any other compiler that didn't conform to this convention, but it
is best never to assume anything.

Tony Mason
Univ. of Chicago, Dept. of C.S.
ARPA: mason@gargoyle.uchicago.edu
UUCP: ...ihnp4!gargoyle!mason