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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: portability and standards
Message-ID: <6044@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 30-Jun-87 16:18:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.6044
Posted: Tue Jun 30 16:18:32 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 1-Jul-87 06:45:04 EDT
References: <8113@brl-adm.ARPA>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 14

In article <8113@brl-adm.ARPA> edstrom%UNCAEDU.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.EDU writes:
>headerfile.h
>
>extern double example;
>double example = 33.3;
>
>I use this on VAX VMS and it works fine.

I don't understand how this could work on VMS; every file that includes
the header file would be attempting to initialize the external storage
allocated for "example".  The fact that they are using the same initializer
must be being taken into account somehow by the VMS linker, but in general
this usage is an error.  There must be no more than one explicit static
initialization of any particular datum.