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From: jamesa@arabian.Sun.COM (James D. Allen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Another silly question
Message-ID: <105998@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 21 May 89 21:45:39 GMT
References: <17812@cup.portal.com> <607@kl-cs.UUCP> <749@mccc.UUCP> <10299@smoke.BRL.MIL>
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In article <10299@smoke.BRL.MIL>, gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>In article <13234@haddock.ima.isc.com> karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer) writes:
>>... outlawing "i[a]" would have been a small step
>>towards making arrays higher-class citizens than they are.
>
>I don't think you can ever make the existing C arrays first-class
>objects without invalidating large amounts of existing correct code.
>There are efforts underway to find a suitable language extension
>that solves this problem (for the new class of objects provided by
>the extension).

One source of trouble is "hidden" array typedefs, such as `jmp_buf'.
(You have to "know" what a jmp_buf is to use it nontrivially, while
if it were "first-class" you wouldn't.)  But a logical array can be
promoted to a first-class citizen by just putting it in a structure:

		typedef struct {
			jmp_buf j;
		} first_class_jmpbuf;

Any idea why this wasn't done for jmp_buf's?

I think the "second-classedness" of arrays helps give C its elegant
syntax.  Any other examples of the "problems" it causes?