🚀 go-pugleaf

In article mkf@franklin.its.utas.edu.au, vmm@tasman.its.utas.edu.au (Vishv Malhotra) writes:
>
>In the following function a++; is acceptable but b++; is not.
>
>	void foo(int a[20]) {
>		int b[20];
>
>		a++;
>		b++;
>	}
>
>I understand the reason, but I wish to know if there is any thought
>on elimination the anomaly?

You can modify 'a' because its declaration is implicitly rewritten by the
compiler to "int *a".  That is, even though its declaration looks like an
array, "a" is really a pointer variable.

You cannot modify 'b' because it is the name of an array, and represents
its address. For example, the following is disallowed for the same reason:
	int x;
	(&x)++; /* error */

How would you go about either forbidding a++ or allowing b++, without
also making fundamental changes throughout the language?

Personally, I think the array/pointer schizophrenia in C was a mistake, as
it leads to endless confusion and prevents using arrays as first-class
objects. But changing the current relationship of pointers and arrays in C
would break all existing C programs, since even the declaration of main
relies on it.

---
Steve Clamage, stephen.clamage@eng.sun.com