Function returning Structure: How does it work?

[Scott Amspoker]

In article <18222 at well.sf.ca.us> rld at well.sf.ca.us (Rick Davis) writes:
>> Of course, this
>> can lead to a great deal of copying so most of the time you're better off
>> arranging things for the function to have type STRUCT * instead.
>
>I can't agree with this too strongly.  Passing entire structures back
>and forth is almost always a serious waste of time and stack space.

...unless the structure can fit in a single word.  I've seen compilers
which handle that rather nicely.

>Also, some implementations of C won't even let you try.  Code portability
>alone works for me.

We been porting our C code to dozens of different platforms and C compilers 
for the *past 5 years* and have never encountered a C compiler that did
not allow structure assignment.  Much older compilers, however, might
complain.  Such compilers typically conform to old K&R and also don't
maintain separate name spaces for structure field names.  That's asking
too much for portability IMHO.


-- 
Scott Amspoker
Basis International, Albuquerque, NM
(505) 345-5232
unmvax.cs.unm.edu!bbx!bbxsda!scott