Undefined static function

[John L. Beal]

> Here's a question for all the C language lawyers out there.  What should
> a C compiler make of the following:
> 
> 	static char *tgoto();
> 
> 	main()
> 	{
> 		.....
> 		if (tgoto(......).....
> 		.....
> 	}
> 
> In other words, we declare a function to be static, use it, but do not
> define it in the source file.  This occurs in libcurses/cr_tty.c (4.2BSD).
> The 4.2 compiler happily accepts this and links the 'static' tgoto to a
> definition in another source file.  In this case it is what the author
> intended, but it should really have been thrown out by the compiler,
> methinks.
> -- 
> Frank Cringle, Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Edinburgh
> UUCP:  <UK>!ukc!{hwcs,kcl-cs,ucl-cs,edcaad}!cstvax!fdc
> JANET: fdc at UK.AC.ed.cstvax  or   fdc at UK.AC.ed.ecsvax

>From postnews Wed Sep 18 13:49:21 1985
> 
> 	static char *tgoto();
> 
> 	main()
> 	{
> 		.....
> 		if (tgoto(......).....
> 		.....
> 	}
> 
> In other words, we declare a function to be static, use it, but do not
> define it in the source file.  This occurs in libcurses/cr_tty.c (4.2BSD).
> The 4.2 compiler happily accepts this and links the 'static' tgoto to a
> definition in another source file.  In this case it is what the author
> intended, but it should really have been thrown out by the compiler,
> methinks.
> -- 
> Frank Cringle, Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Edinburgh
> UUCP:  <UK>!ukc!{hwcs,kcl-cs,ucl-cs,edcaad}!cstvax!fdc
> JANET: fdc at UK.AC.ed.cstvax  or   fdc at UK.AC.ed.ecsvax

Who knows. C knows that functions are extern (K&R says that somewhere)
so that a i
char f();

will be extern. Maybe it just ignores that static in some implementations
and believes it in others?