NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/lang/c-part1/4678

Text File | 1996-08-05 | 1.9 KB | 48 lines

Path: mail2news.demon.co.uk!genesis.demon.co.uk
From: Lawrence Kirby <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: void main() and other atrocities!
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 96 13:17:06 GMT
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References: <4eduaj$[e-mail]> <4em17r$[e-mail]> <4emub9$[e-mail]> <4epplj$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <4f5vc2$qcj@cdn_news.telecom.com.au>
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In article <4f5vc2$qcj@cdn_news.telecom.com.au>
           [e-mail] "Jeff Olson" writes:

>How about:
>
>int main (int argc, char **argv)
>
>I saw in the FAQ that a multi-dimentional array will not decay into a pointer
>to a pointer.  This main() is valid with my Sparcworks compiler so I would
>like to know if my compiler is supporting non-standard behavior or if argv is
>a pointer to an array of characters (meaning it can decay into a pointer to a
>pointer).

argv is correctly a pointer to a pointer. The standard writes the 2 parameter
form of main as

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { /*...*/ }

The type of argv stated here is an array of pointers to char. By the function
parameter rewrite rule the compiler treats this exactly as if it were
written as:

int main(int argc, char **argv) { /*...*/ }

However the important thing to note is that the 'argv array' is genuinely
an array of pointers (and is not an array of arrays) so it is correct that
argv itself is a pointer to a pointer. If you were to call main you couldn't
legally pass it an array of arrays.

--
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Lawrence Kirby | [e-mail]
Wilts, England | [e-mail]
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