structure function returns -- how?

[Larry Campbell]

In article <131 at hcx1.UUCP> notes at hcx1.UUCP writes:
>Suppose   a   is declared as a structure and   b   is a function which 
>returns a structure.  In the statement:
>                       a = b () ;
>when and how should the copying into   a   take place?

The compiler on my system (which is pcc based) allocates static unnamed
storage in b.  It puts the result there and returns a pointer to the
storage.  The routine containing the assignment then copies the result
into a, using the pointer returned by b.  It seems to me that this is
also signal-unsafe -- if a signal occurs just before the copy, and the
signal handler calls b -- whammo.
-- 
Larry Campbell				     The Boston Software Works, Inc.
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