Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!tgr!gwyn@Brl-Vld.ARPA From: Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB)Newsgroups: net.lang.c Subject: Re: multidimensional arrays in C Message-ID: <7038@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Sun, 6-Jan-85 12:35:04 EST Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.7038 Posted: Sun Jan 6 12:35:04 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 8-Jan-85 02:40:33 EST Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA Organization: Ballistic Research Lab Lines: 16 I love C and use it for almost all applications programming. The single biggest deficiency I have found in the language is what Mr. Grady explained: Formal array parameters are not permitted to have parametric dimensions. That is, void mat_mul( p, q, r, a, b, c ) int p, q, r; /* dimensions */ double a[p][q], b[q][r], c[p][r]; /* arrays */ { is not a legal C procedure header. It is clear that a C compiler COULD be made to handle this more general case, and that there is no practical way to code this procedure using the current language definition. If one wants to displace Fortran from its dominating position in numerical software, this problem HAS to be solved.