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From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: pointers to arrays and the '&' operator
Message-ID: <9659@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 16 Feb 89 17:19:13 GMT
References: <3927@ingr.com>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 17

In article <3927@ingr.com> crossgl@ingr.com (Gordon Cross) writes:
>Allright, the recent discussion regarding pointers to arrays in C reminds
>me of something that I consider to be a major deficiency of the language.

It is actually the fact that arrays are not first-class objects in C
that is the deficiency.  This cannot be fully remedied without
invalidating large amounts of existing correct code.

>Since I am allowed to declare something that has type "pointer to an array
>of...", then why am I not permitted to apply the '&' (address of) operator
>directly to an array??

In ANSI C, you are allowed to do so.

Many existing (PCC-based) compilers permit &array but ignore the &.
That is not the ANSI C behavior, though.  For maximal portability
you should avoid using &array for a few years.