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From: randy@csseq.tamu.edu (Randy Hutson)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: const and struct pointers
Message-ID: <4325@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Date: 24 Feb 90 12:36:00 GMT
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In message <90054.232325CMH117@psuvm.psu.edu> CMH117@psuvm.psu.edu 
(Charles Hannum) writes:


>The double is passed by value; so dereferencing it works fine.  But the
>struct is passed by reference (as are *all* structures in C!).  In reality,
>you need to pass a "struct qwert *" to the function.  Normally, the compiler
>takes the reference automatically, but you are trying to do this in reverse.
>Thus, it does not work; you simply can't pass a structure by value.

The original poster said his compiler claimed to be ANSI compliant.  ANSI
C allows structures to be assigned, returned by functions, and passed by
value to functions.  However, some non-ANSI compilers may do as you have 
said with struct function arguments.