🚀 go-pugleaf

When I try to build groff-1.6 under hpux 8.07 on an hp730 using gcc-2.2.2,
ld doesn't find the symbol "NULL_SYMBOL" when linking troff.  I have tried to
reduce the problem to the simplest possible form.  When I compile the routine
main with gcc -c and nm main.o|grep NULL, it gives the following output:

NULL_SYMBOL         |          |undef |code   |

Why is NULL_SYMBOL in the code segment?  If I remove "const" from
the line in symbol.h, then NULL_SYMBOL switches to the data segment.  What
gives?


// symbol.h

class symbol {
  const char *s;
};

extern const symbol NULL_SYMBOL;

// main.cc
// Short main program to exhibit problem with const.

#include "symbol.h"

main()
{
   symbol s = NULL_SYMBOL;
}

Dave Anglin
National Research Council of Canada