Programming Forums > Application Development > C++

grumpy · Mar 2nd, 2006, 4:55 AM

Technically, also;

char *x = "Hello";

is an anomoly of the C language, because this isn't allowed;

(Toggle Plain Text)

char *x = {'H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', '\0'};

(which, if C was a perfectly consistent language) would be functionally equivalent. The treatment of string literals like this is a special case that was introduced into the language well before the C standard of 1989. The reason it was introduced was because of whinging programmers who wanted to be able to initialise a char pointer with a string.

The more general form (initialising a pointer with an array, as in the second case) was not added to the language DELIBERATELY (despite the anomoly of using string initialisers) because pointers and arrays are actually very different things, and it was considered desirable to keep them as separate things.

Mar 2nd, 2006, 4:55 AM	#11
grumpy Programming Guru Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Adelaide, South Australia Posts: 1,206 Rep Power: 5	Technically, also; (Toggle Plain Text) char x = "Hello"; char x = "Hello"; is an anomoly of the C language, because this isn't allowed; (Toggle Plain Text) char x = {'H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', '\0'}; char x = {'H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', '\0'}; (which, if C was a perfectly consistent language) would be functionally equivalent. The treatment of string literals like this is a special case that was introduced into the language well before the C standard of 1989. The reason it was introduced was because of whinging programmers who wanted to be able to initialise a char pointer with a string. The more general form (initialising a pointer with an array, as in the second case) was not added to the language DELIBERATELY (despite the anomoly of using string initialisers) because pointers and arrays are actually very different things, and it was considered desirable to keep them as separate things.

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