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From: mikem@otc.oz (Mike Mowbray)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Global constructors and C++ I/O streams;  problems and questions.
Message-ID: <467@otc.oz>
Date: 24 Oct 88 10:20:16 GMT
References: <5955@columbia.edu>
Organization: OTC Development Unit, Australia
Lines: 58

In article <5955@columbia.edu>, beshers@select.columbia.edu (Clifford Beshers)
says:

 > The problem lies in the constructor of the global instance [...]
 > the reference to the cout stream occurs before [its] initialization ...

This is a problem that recurs now and then. I will re-post my original
answer to the problem here anyway, since it is quite some time since this
question was asked.

 > Because global instances are initialized in the order in which they are
 > declared, this is expected;

Actually, this is not quite true - they are usually called in the order in
which they are linked, which is the reverse of what you want.

> So, the question, is there any way around this?

To fix it, you must have the source of munch. (Patch users will need to do the
fix by figuring what changes are needed in patch).

Here are the diff's:

$ diff  lib/static/munch.c.orig  lib/static/munch.c.new
36,37c36,38
< sbuf* dtor;   // list of constructors
< sbuf* ctor;   // list of destructors
---
> sbuf* dtor;   // list of destructors
> sbuf* ctor;   // list of constructors
> sbuf* tail;   // tail of list of constructors
63c64,69
<                               ctor = new sbuf(ctor,st);
---
>                               register sbuf *newctor = new sbuf(NULL, st);
>                               if (tail != NULL)
>                                       tail->next = newctor;
>                               else
>                                       ctor = newctor;
>                               tail = newctor;
$

I.e: make the list of ctors in the opposite order instead.

Examine what is going on in munch and you will see what I mean about the
order of calling static ctors. Note that static dtors are OK since you want
them to be called in reverse order to static ctors. To understand all this you
will also need to examine the otehr files in lib/static - cfront is arranging
for an _main() function to be called at the start of main(), which calls a list
of ctor functions which munch sets up.


			   Mike Mowbray
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