Must a NULL pointer be a 0 bit patte

[mwm at ea.UUCP]

/***** ea:net.lang.c / utzoo!henry / 11:22 am  Oct 23, 1984 */
As I understand it, nobody is claiming that the "first element" rule is
good; all they are claiming is that it's simple and does not have adverse
consequences elsewhere.  Apparently the various alternatives all have
serious problems of one kind or another.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
/* ---------- */

Was one of the alternatives something similar to the ALGOLW "record constant"
facility? In C, this would translate to:

	(struct gezornin) {"a", 10, 2.3, 'x'}

being considered a constant. Thus, you can do union initialization as so:

	struct gort {
		int	type ;
		union	info {
				struct	gfloat	{ float	gfx, gfy } ;
				struct	gint	{ long	gix, giy } ;
				string	*name ;
				} ;
		} sample[] = {
			{T_FLOAT, (struct glfoat) { 3.4, 5.7 } } ,
			{T_INT, (struct gint) { 243, 56 } } ,
			{T_STRING, (char *) "this is a test" }
			} ;

In other words, add a facility to allow structure constants (useful in *lots*
of places), and then require all union initializations to have an explicit
cast.

The union initializations won't break any existing code (nobody has them
now, right? :-), and the "struct constants" shouldn't break any code.

Comments?

	<mike