[TUHS] origins of void*

[steve@quintile.net (Steve Simon)]

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I started out on Edition 7, this was
the interdata / perkin elmer port of v7 (based on Richard Milker’s work at Wollongong with some bits of 2.4BSD added in (csh and vi i remember).

i remember this having a modified v6 compiler which had the shared namespace fir all structure members (hence the stat.st_mtime and friends). but it also had structure assignment and enums.

anyone know where this fits into the compiler evolution, or was it an evolutionary dead end?

-Steve
 

> On 5 Nov 2017, at 17:53, Clem cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> 
> Correct.  When void came into C, full typing was already there; so void * was a part and it was first exploited because of the useful property of the return.  The ptr properties became more and more important as its power was realized.    
> 
> FYI. K&R was written before V7 was released and matched the Typesetter C compiler for V6 more than the later compiler released in V7.  i.e. A slightly more mature version compiler was included in UNIX/TS which was what Bourne used as the V7 ‘project manager’ (Steve had a couple interesting stories about the later process).  By that point in time void had been added as formal type to the language. 
> 
> As since Bourne had been the driver for void it is not surprising that he picked up a version of the compiler that he thought was important.  Thus as was noted it meant the book and released compiler were not in sync.  
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not quite. 
> 
>> On Nov 5, 2017, at 7:14 AM, Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:
>> 
>> void functions certainly were much more widely used before void *, but void * worked on all the compilers I ever used. I'm a relative newcomer, though, since the first C compiler I used was on a VAX running 4.2BSD...
>> 
>> Warner
>> 
>>> On Sun, Nov 5, 2017 at 6:20 AM, Ron Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com> wrote:
>>> Yes.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but I recall functions returning void came before void*.
>>> 
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>> 
>>> > On Nov 5, 2017, at 5:06 AM, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Paul Ruizendaal <pnr at planet.nl> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> I’m trying to understand the origins of void pointers in C. I think
>>> >> they first appeared formally in the C89 spec, but may have existed in
>>> >> earlier compilers.
>>> >
>>> > void was added after the publication of the first edition of K&R, in
>>> > the V7 time frame. The 4.x compilers had support for void pointers and
>>> > functions returning void. Also added around the same time was structure
>>> > assignment and the ability to pass and return structs by value (although
>>> > this was little used).
>>> >
>>> >> In the 4BSD era there was caddr_t, which I think was used for pretty
>>> >> much the same purposes.
>>> >
>>> > Only for kernel code. I am pretty sure caddr_t wasn't used in user-land code.
>>> >
>>> > HTH,
>>> >
>>> > Arnold
>>> 
>> 
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