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Aucbvax.5443 fa.unix-wizards utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!unix-wizards Fri Dec 11 11:09:28 1981 extern char * >From ihuxl!jej@Berkeley Fri Dec 11 11:02:21 1981 It's a feature. zot [] is equivalent to zot * ONLY in parameter lists. If you have an extern, you must declare it zot [], since otherwise it thinks that there's an extern which holds a reference to a zot, and you merrily follow it into random memory.

I hope this is clear; it's one of the things that you have to read the fine print, or rather between the lines, of Kernighan and Ritchie to figure out (and even then only when you get burned), and one of the places that C so HORRIBLY butchers the difference between an object and a reference to it that you should learn Algol 68 just to talk about it sensibly, as per Sapir and Whorf...

James Jones (ihuxl!jej)

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