Converting FORTRAN to C

[John Mackin]

In article <435 at ukma.UUCP>, david at ukma.UUCP (David Herron, NPR Lover) writes:

> Any program that is referencing outside
> the bounds of an array is already broken, and should be shot on
> sight. :-)  (unless it can give good reason for behaving in such a manner).

There is at least one excellent reason, commonly used in C, for referencing
beyond the bounds of an array.  It is this:

#define	ARRAYSIZE	200

type_t array[ARRAYSIZE];

...

    type_t *p;

    for (p = array; p < &array[ARRAYSIZE]; p++)
	...

Now, sure you could say "p <= &array[ARRARYSIZE - 1]" instead.  But which
is clearer, and easier to read ... and, more importantly, used in many,
many places in V7 UNIX as distributed by AT&T?  I get VERY ANGRY at compilers
like Whitesmiths' (for VAX/VMS, at least) that get upset about this construct.

After all, this is C, not PASCAL or some other wimp's language that
checks array bounds. :-)

John Mackin, Physiology Department, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
...!decvax!mulga!physiol.su.oz!john