Path: utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!sce!cognos!jimp
From: jimp@cognos.uucp (Jim Patterson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: malloced structure initilization
Message-ID: <5280@aldebaran.UUCP>
Date: 14 Feb 89 19:31:56 GMT
Article-I.D.: aldebara.5280
References: <202@sabin.UUCP> <8894@alice.UUCP> <1874@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Reply-To: jimp@cognos.UUCP (Jim Patterson)
Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 27

In article <1874@dataio.Data-IO.COM> bright@dataio.Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright) writes:
>In article <8894@alice.UUCP< ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) writes:
><In article <202@sabin.UUCP<, bjm@sabin.UUCP (Brendan J. McMahon) writes:
><	static struct foo init_foo;
><init_foo is guaranteed to be initialized because it's static.
>Yah, and init_foo is guaranteed to be initialized to a 0 bit pattern,

Not so, according to the pANS C. See section 3.5.7:

  "If an object that has static storage duration is not
  initialized explicitly, it is initialized implicitly as if
  every member that has arithmetic type were assigned 0 and
  every member that has pointer type were assigned the null
  pointer constant"

As far as I know, on every known architecture supporting C the effect
is exactly the same anyways.

(Somebody, please correct me IF YOU KNOW OF A COUNTER EXAMPLE. I've
seen too many people say that it's not guaranteed by pANS C, which I
know, but I have not yet seen the name of a single machine or system
with a C compiler for which it isn't true).
-- 
Jim Patterson                              Cognos Incorporated
UUCP:decvax!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!jimp P.O. BOX 9707    
PHONE:(613)738-1440                        3755 Riverside Drive
                                           Ottawa, Ont  K1G 3Z4