Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!iuvax!bsu-cs!dhesi
From: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: wait ((char *) 0)
Summary: was Re: thanks for "down" answers
Keywords: aack thppt
Message-ID: <5147@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Date: 14 Dec 88 17:02:12 GMT
References: <gables.352@umigw.miami.edu> <9142@smoke.BRL.MIL> <gables.359@umigw.miami.edu> <685@auspex.UUCP> <1886@loral.UUCP>
Reply-To: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi)
Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana
Lines: 13

In article <1886@loral.UUCP> jlh@loral.UUCP writes:
>In all his examples [the professor] used wait ( (char *) 0).
>I pointed out to him that wait wanted an address in which to stuff a result,
>and using 0 was probably not a good idea.

Passing a NULL pointer to a function is occasionally used to mean
"don't return anything here this time".  My 4.3BSD manual allows
wait(0).  [This probably ought to be wait((union wait *)0) ].

Take a look also at the time() system call.

This is really a UNIX issue, and not a generic C issue.
-- 
Rahul Dhesi         UUCP:  <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi