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Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!decvax!ima!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Problem with either ANSI 'C' or Dr Dobbs Journal.
Message-ID: <894@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: Fri, 7-Aug-87 14:44:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: haddock.894
Posted: Fri Aug  7 14:44:39 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Aug-87 04:23:27 EDT
References: <449@sugar.UUCP> <8383@utzoo.UUCP>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 15
Summary: lack of prototype may indeed imply fixed argcount

In article <8383@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> It then adds that if no prototype is provided, the function may be
>> assumed to have a fixed number of arguments.
>
>This is simply wrong:  no prototype means no assumptions.

"A.6.2 Undefined behavior: ... A function that accepts a variable number of
arguments is called, but no prototype declarator with the ellipsis notation
is in scope."  [Oct86 dpANS]

In other words, a variadic function must have a prototype.  This implies that
a function called without a prototype in scope may be assumed to have a fixed
number of arguments.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint