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From: mack@inco.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Literal strings in C
Message-ID: <212@inco.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Jun-87 12:59:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: inco.212
Posted: Wed Jun 10 12:59:07 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jun-87 20:37:52 EDT
Organization: McDonnell Douglas-INCO, McLean, VA
Lines: 33
Keywords: l-valued vs r-valued


	There has recently been some discussion of literal strings
	in C in this group, and I thought I'd confuse the issue by
	pointing out a couple of real peculiarities. Both of the
	following statements are legal, executable C, at least to
	the Sun 3.2 C compiler, which is presumably based on PCC.

	c = "literal string"[i];

	"literal string"[i] = c;

	The first form is not unreasonable (saves a character pointer,
	anyway.)

	The second statement seems utterly useless. 

	Make of this what you will. Can anybody out there imagine a
	case where something like the second statement would be
	useful?

	Does the ANSI standard address this sort of thing?

	"C is not merely stranger than we imagine; it is stranger than
	we *can* imagine."
	-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Dave Mack  (from Mack's Bedroom :<)
  McDonnell Douglas-Inco, Inc. 		DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed
  8201 Greensboro Drive                 are my own and in no way reflect the
  McLean, VA 22102			views of McDonnell Douglas or its
  (703)883-3911				subsidiaries.
  ...!seismo!sundc!hadron!inco!mack
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