From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" <DAGwyn@null.net>
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References: <20010706055512.42D78199D7@mail.cse.psu.edu>, <200107061654.RAA07880@cthulhu.dircon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [9fans] thread
Date: Mon,  9 Jul 2001 08:33:03 +0000
Topicbox-Message-UUID: c39929a2-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025

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.