Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: net.lang.c Subject: Re: Global ptrs init to NULL or 0000? Message-ID: <6118@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Mon, 4-Nov-85 20:21:23 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.6118 Posted: Mon Nov 4 20:21:23 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 4-Nov-85 20:21:23 EST References: <772@whuxl.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 17 > ... in all the C compilers I know of, any uninitialized > global/static is stuffed into the bss section and is set to all 0 bytes at > run time... > > So the big question is: is it OK (portable, etc) to assume that declaring > a global/static ptr without initialization will set it to the machine's > idea of NULL, not all 0 bytes? ... That's the way things are supposed to work according to X3J11. I would be a little wary of assuming that things really *do* work that way on those few machines that have non-0 NULLs, with current compilers. I'd say the assumption is all right in general, unless you are really being maximally paranoid. If you expect to have to port your software to such a machine next month, some paranoia may be in order. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry