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From: miker3@ix.netcom.com (Mike Rubenstein)
Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with? [was: Re: Should I learn
 C or Pascal?]
Date: 1996/08/10
Message-ID: <320bfa8b.9842502@nntp.ix.netcom.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 173285431
references: <sperlman-0507961717550001@p121.ezo.net> <320433CE.6D5A@online.no>
 <4u1g29$hc0@solutions.solon.com> <01bb826a$b222f400$9bee6fce@timhome2>
 <4u3tt1$qub@solutions.solon.com> <4u5682$qgs@dawn.mmm.com>
 <4u5hcj$q3a@cnn.Princeton.EDU>
organization: Netcom
x-netcom-date: Fri Aug 09 10:02:27 PM CDT 1996
newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-08-09T22:02:27-05:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


tim@franck (Tim Hollebeek) wrote:

> Any C programmer should know a string literal is a *POINTER TO* a real
> object in memory.  I've seen tons of bad C code based on not
> understanding this.  The famous 'if (x == "foo")' is just one example.

This is just not true.  A string literal is an array of char, not a
pointer.  In many situations it is converted to a pointer, but there
are some where it is not.  The "C programmer" who thinks a string
literal is a pointer is not going to understand why

	#include <stdio.h>

	int main(void)
	{
	  char* a;
	  a = "hello world";
	  if (sizeof a == sizeof "hello world")
	    printf("no\n");
	  else
	    printf("yes\n");
	  return 0;
	}

probably prints yes rather than no.

Michael M Rubenstein