Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!purdue!umd5!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: strcpy
Message-ID: <10753@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 21 Mar 88 17:50:36 GMT
References: <7712@apple.Apple.Com> <7485@brl-smoke.ARPA> <10731@mimsy.UUCP> <7506@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 15

>In article <10731@mimsy.UUCP> I wrote:
>>		/* remove leading junk (n < strlen(buf)) */
>>		(void) strcpy(buf, buf + n);

In article <7506@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>This usage was never a good idea, because a valid implementation of
>strcpy() would be to copy right-to-left rather than left-to-right

`That turns out not to be the case'---or rather, are you certain?
I agree that a generic block copy operation (one of {memcpy, memmove}
---I cannot remember which allows overlap) might do this; I do not
agree that strcpy() may be implemented that way.  (I could be wrong.)
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris