From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!info-vax
Newsgroups: fa.info-vax
Title: Re: Dec C compiler.
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.7671
Posted: Tue Jun 15 13:50:27 1982
Received: Thu Jun 17 04:20:45 1982

>From dan@BBN-UNIX Tue Jun 15 13:52:10 1982
1. Re structure members: is there a way to obtain the "traditional"
behavior (free-floating structure members useful with any structure)?
Not that I would ever want it, but there's enough software that assumes
it that I would expect portability problems if it were not available
as an option.

2. Re returning structures: this implementation implies some constraints
that the traditional implementation lacks. First, the caller must declare
the routine as returning a structure even if the caller doesn't use
the return value. This is perfectly reasonable, but again it means
a potential portability problem. I assume that if I declare a routine
as returning a structure, and call it without using that return value,
the compiler will still provide the extra address. More important, where
is that "extra argument"? It better not be the last argument, since that
would prohibit functions which return structures from taking a variable
number of arguments.