Re: Look what I caught! was re:Ada paper critic

[Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>]

Wes Groleau <wesgroleau@despammed.com> writes:

> > >  A C array does not contain
> > >"one element more" on either side.  The standard allows setting
> > >a pointer to the next element after the end of an array, but
> > >such a pointer can not be dereferenced.
> 
> The standard does?  But most compilers ignore this, right?
> 
> Or is the some other explanation why it's so @#$%@#$% easy
> to get a segmentation fault in C ?

I think the statement that the standard "can not be dereferenced" is
correct, if you interpret it to mean "any program that does so does not
conform to the C standard".  The reason it's "so @#$%@#$% easy..." is
that the C standard does not require compilers to detect programs that
violate the C standard in this way (and many other ways).  The Fortran
and Pascal standards take the same attitude: compilers are not required
to detect non-conforming programs.  The Ada standard of course requires
such detection in most cases, which is a huge advantage of Ada.

- Bob