Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!bcase
From: bcase@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Grammer discrepancies for external data definitions.
Message-ID: <8014@cup.portal.com>
Date: 10 Aug 88 01:17:30 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 17
XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.5156

Hi.  I have a question about the necessity of including a type-specifier for
an external data definition (not a function definition).  It seems that the
ANSI C grammer in the back of the new (2nd edition) K & R book doesn't allow
something like

*i;

to stand for

int *i;

In fact, in the "Summary of changes" section in the back of that book, it says:
"External declarations without any specifiers or qualifiers (just a naked
declarator) are fobidden."  Yet it seems that at least some claimed-ANSI C
compilers accept this and do what you might expect (allocate room for an int).
At least one C++ implementation disallows it.  To those of you with the ANSI
spec sitting in front of you, I ask "what is the correct behavior?"