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From: casey@gauss.llnl.gov (Casey Leedom)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: stupid C question
Message-ID: <16172@lll-winken.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jan 89 02:15:34 GMT
References: <8812300028.AA17754@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU> <4543@xenna.Encore.COM> <16124@lll-winken.UUCP> <4552@xenna.Encore.COM>
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Reply-To: casey@lll-crg.llnl.gov.UUCP (Casey Leedom)
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| From: bzs@Encore.COM (Barry Shein)
| 
| | From: Casey Leedom <casey@lll-crg.llnl.gov>
| | 
| | In some ways interpreting sizeof("...") to be sizeof(char *) would be
| | more consistent, but certainly less useful.
| 
| Based on that reasoning we would expect for: ``int a[10];'' sizeof(a) to
| be sizeof(int *)?  [Sizeof is not a subroutine, it's an operator.]  Thus,
| it can have its own semantics, and does, you're looking for consistency
| where none is needed.

  Right as usual Barry.  I should have remembered that the basic semantic
meaning of ``sizeof foo'' is size of the OBJECT foo.  Sizeof (char *),
etc. is just asking what the size of an abstract OBJECT of type (char *),
etc. would be.  Thus sizeof(char [10]) returns 10 for the abstract OBJECT
which is an array of 10 characters.

Casey