Re: [9fans] thread

[Digby Tarvin <digbyt@acm.org>]

I think you misunderstand. I was referring to the application of '&' to
a variable of array type, not to a type. Applied to an array type, it
produces a change of type but no change in value. An unusual case
where the '&' operator could be replaced by a cast with no change
in semantics.  I would say that was special treatment, (resulting
from the special treatments of array names) albeit in accordance
with the C standard.

Regards,
DigbyT

Douglas A. Gwyn:

> Digby Tarvin wrote:
> > I was aware that the array type was special in that the application of
> > the '&' operator to it resulted in a change of type but not of value.
>
> ? One cannot (meaningfully) apply & to a type, only to a certain kind
> of expression.  When that expression consists of an identifier that
> has been declared as an object having array type, then in fact
> &that_identifier is *not* treated specially, according to the C
> standard, but rather follows the generic rules for the & operator.
> What is special is the special rule that the unadorned identifier
> decays, in most contexts, into a pointer to the first element of the
> array designated by that identifier; this is closely connected with
> arrays not being first-class objects in C.  It is often convenient,
> but is not natural.
>
--
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk