Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!spdcc!ima!haddock!karl From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: why p->member ? Message-ID: <6031@haddock.ISC.COM> Date: 10 Aug 88 21:36:38 GMT References: <16734@adm.ARPA> <474@sp7040.UUCP> <12937@mimsy.UUCP> Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer) Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston Lines: 13 In article <12937@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes: >to restate the question, `why does not p.member follow the pointer >automagically?' [Historical reason deleted] People have enough trouble with the difference between pointers and arrays. If `.' and `->' were the same operator, they'd have a similar difficulty understanding the difference between structs and struct pointers. Also, even those of us who understand the difference are likely to make a typo now and then. I prefer my typos to elicit an error message from the compiler, rather than silently guessing what I meant. Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint