guido (04/29/83)
Could anyone tell me whether the following C construct is portable
beyond Version 7 (PDP-11/45) and 4.1BSD (VAX-11/780) UNIX systems?
On these it works fine, including pcc on the PDP.
I presume it's more or less a loader problem; do other systems have
powerful enough loaders? (Note that with static instead of external,
it's illegal according to the book AND to the compilers.)
Here's the code:
typedef struct x XX;
struct x { XX *p; };
extern XX a, b;
XX a = { &b }; /* 'Forward reference'. Does this work always? */
XX b = { &a };
PLEASE MAIL TO (...!decvax)!mcvax!guido.
Guido van Rossum, Mathematical Centre, Amsterdam (Holland)