Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!modcomp!joe
From: joe@modcomp.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: problems using sizeof()
Message-ID: <8000001@modcomp>
Date: 19 Aug 88 15:11:00 GMT
References: <751@arctic.nprdc.arpa>
Lines: 24
Nf-ID: #R:arctic.nprdc.arpa:751:modcomp:8000001:000:730
Nf-From: modcomp.UUCP!joe    Aug 19 11:11:00 1988


Jeff Siegal (jbs @ fenchurch.mit.edu.UUCP) writes:

>In article <8553@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes:
> >[...]the more general problem of determining the size of an array which is
> >passed via a pointer cannot be done in C.
>
>Nor in any other language, [...] You can't tell the size of an object from a
>pointer to it.

Not true for Fortran 77.  The semantics of the language require that the size
of a character string argument also be passed to a procedure.  The construct
which requires this feature is:

	SUBROUTINE FOO(CA)
	CHARACTER*(*) CA
	 :
	END

The asterisk in parens forces CA to assume the size of the calling argument on
each instantiation of the procedure.

Joe Korty
uucp!modcomp!joe