Is the behaviour defined

[grid]

Hi,
A collegue of mine is of the opinion that the behaviour of the
following program is defined,but I am a little apprehensive.

#include<stdio. h>
#include<string .h>

int main()
{
char *c;
c = &c;
strcpy(c,"abc") ;
puts(&c);
retun 0;
}

The program prints the same value "abc" on multiple platforms and I even
tried it with multiple compilers.I can make out that its trying to write
to the pointer address and so probably the max it can write is 3 bytes +
'\0'.But even if I try to copy more that 4 bytes it prints the whole
string without any crashes.

Changed line >> strcpy(c,"abcde fg");

Now I know that this behaviour is undefined(writi ng more than 4 bytes)
as the sizeof the pointer is 4 bytes(on the machine I tested on).

Can anyone comment if this is compliant code and is the behaviour
guaranteed.

Thanks
~

[SM Ryan]

# Now I know that this behaviour is undefined(writi ng more than 4 bytes)
# as the sizeof the pointer is 4 bytes(on the machine I tested on).

Pointers aren't always four bytes. What you're looking for is
sizeof c>=strlen(strin g)+1

--
SM Ryan http://www.rawbw.com/~wyrmwif/
Death is the worry of the living. The dead, like myself,
only worry about decay and necrophiliacs.

[Joe Wright]

grid wrote:

int main()
{
char *c;
c = &c;
strcpy(c,"abc") ;
puts(&c);
retun 0; }

It should be return 0;
The spell of the return is wrong in the test program above.I did not
have it in my test program which I compiled , but added it while
composing this mail , of the fear of getting battered by the C language
purists ;).

Let me be the first to warn of impending doom. You define c an object of
type char*. For sake of argument, the compiler arbitrarily places c at
address 0100. Now you assign this address to c itself. If your warnings
are high enough, you will be told about this. c has type char* while &c
has type char**. The two are incompatible types.

Assuming you got away with the assingment 'c = &c;' your c doesn't point
to usable memory. With 'strcpy(c,"abc" );' the Devil steps in, destroying
c and anything else the Devil chooses. You are toast.

Given the prototype in stdio.h as..

int puts(const char *);

What on earth do you think 'puts(&c);' will do?

--
Joe Wright
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
--- Albert Einstein ---

[Chris Torek]

In article <QK************ @news.oracle.co m> grid <pr******@gmail .com> wrote:

A collegue of mine is of the opinion that the behaviour of the
following program is defined, but I am a little apprehensive.

#include<stdio .h>
#include<strin g.h>

int main()
{
char *c;
c = &c;
strcpy(c,"abc") ;
puts(&c);
retun 0;
}
This code does not even compile:

% strictcc t.c
t.c: In function `main':
t.c:7: error: assignment from incompatible pointer type
t.c:9: error: passing arg 1 of `puts' from incompatible pointer type
t.c:10: syntax error before `0'
%

Fixing the obvious typo (so that line 10 says "return" instead of
"retun") still gives two error messages and no executable.

Adding the two obvious casts gives a program that fails when run
on some machines -- the "return" does something very bad, since
the bytes beyond &c that were overwritten held the return stack
frame. (Amazingly enough, it *does* work on both the Data General
Eclipse and the Cray, with the casts.)
Can anyone comment if this is compliant code and is the behaviour
guaranteed.

Obviously the answer (to both questions) is "no".
--
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Wind River Systems
Salt Lake City, UT, USA (40°39.22'N, 111°50.29'W) [phone]
email: forget about it http://web.torek.net/torek/index.html
Reading email is like searching for food in the garbage, thanks to spammers.

[SM Ryan]

Joe Wright <jw*****@comcas t.net> wrote:
# grid wrote:
# >> int main()
# >> {
# >> char *c;
# >> c = &c;
# >> strcpy(c,"abc") ;
# >> puts(&c);
# >> retun 0; }

# Assuming you got away with the assingment 'c = &c;' your c doesn't point
# to usable memory. With 'strcpy(c,"abc" );' the Devil steps in, destroying

It points to an n-char wide local variable, where n=sizeof c.

# c and anything else the Devil chooses. You are toast.

As long as you copy n-1 or fewer chars (+ null byte terminator),
the only possible risk is if a pointer value in memory, not a
register, can trap to some kind of representation error.

# What on earth do you think 'puts(&c);' will do?

If the pointer value is interpretable as a n-1 (or less)
character string, it would print that string.

--
SM Ryan http://www.rawbw.com/~wyrmwif/
I have no idea what you just said.
I get that alot.

[Joe Wright]

SM Ryan wrote:

Joe Wright <jw*****@comcas t.net> wrote:
# grid wrote:
# >> int main()
# >> {
# >> char *c;
# >> c = &c;
# >> strcpy(c,"abc") ;
# >> puts(&c);
# >> retun 0; }

# Assuming you got away with the assingment 'c = &c;' your c doesn't point
# to usable memory. With 'strcpy(c,"abc" );' the Devil steps in, destroying

It points to an n-char wide local variable, where n=sizeof c.

# c and anything else the Devil chooses. You are toast.

As long as you copy n-1 or fewer chars (+ null byte terminator),
the only possible risk is if a pointer value in memory, not a
register, can trap to some kind of representation error.

# What on earth do you think 'puts(&c);' will do?

If the pointer value is interpretable as a n-1 (or less)
character string, it would print that string.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(void) {
char *c;
c = &c;
strcpy(c, "abc");
puts(&c);
return 0;
}

smr.c: In function `main':
smr.c:5: warning: assignment from incompatible pointer type
smr.c:7: warning: passing arg 1 of `puts' from incompatible pointer type

I assume you get similar results. Even if it "works" this is not a
decent program.

--
Joe Wright
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
--- Albert Einstein ---

[Joe Wright]

Chris Torek wrote:

In article <QK************ @news.oracle.co m> grid <pr******@gmail .com> wrote:

A collegue of mine is of the opinion that the behaviour of the
following program is defined, but I am a little apprehensive.

#include<stdi o.h>
#include<stri ng.h>

int main()
{
char *c;
c = &c;
strcpy(c,"abc") ;
puts(&c);
retun 0;
}

This code does not even compile:

% strictcc t.c
t.c: In function `main':
t.c:7: error: assignment from incompatible pointer type
t.c:9: error: passing arg 1 of `puts' from incompatible pointer type
t.c:10: syntax error before `0'
%

Fixing the obvious typo (so that line 10 says "return" instead of
"retun") still gives two error messages and no executable.

Adding the two obvious casts gives a program that fails when run
on some machines -- the "return" does something very bad, since
the bytes beyond &c that were overwritten held the return stack
frame. (Amazingly enough, it *does* work on both the Data General
Eclipse and the Cray, with the casts.)

Can anyone comment if this is compliant code and is the behaviour
guaranteed.

Obviously the answer (to both questions) is "no".

I use DJGPP and a batch file to invoke the compiler as..

@echo off
gcc -W -Wall -ansi -pedantic -s -O2 %1.c -o %1.exe -lm

I get the same complaints as you except they are warnings. And there is
an executable produced and it "works" in that it produces

abc

I'm not defending the program, I wonder why I get warnings and you get
errors.

--
Joe Wright
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
--- Albert Einstein ---

[Alexei A. Frounze]

"Joe Wright" <jw*****@comcas t.net> wrote in message
news:I7******** *************** *******@comcast .com...
....

I use DJGPP and a batch file to invoke the compiler as..

@echo off
gcc -W -Wall -ansi -pedantic -s -O2 %1.c -o %1.exe -lm .... I'm not defending the program, I wonder why I get warnings and you get
errors.

There is a command line switch telling the compiler to turn the warnings
into errors, either
-pedantic-errors
or
-Werror
or both will do that -- I've never tried.

Alex

[Kenny McCormack]

In article <I7************ *************** ***@comcast.com >,
Joe Wright <jw*****@comcas t.net> wrote:
....

I use DJGPP and a batch file to invoke the compiler as..

@echo off
gcc -W -Wall -ansi -pedantic -s -O2 %1.c -o %1.exe -lm

I get the same complaints as you except they are warnings. And there is
an executable produced and it "works" in that it produces

abc

I'm not defending the program, I wonder why I get warnings and you get
errors.

Obviously, because we don't know what's behind Chris's "strictcc" command.

(But I suspect it is an invocation of some C compiler that includes a cmd
line option akin to gcc's "-Werror")

[Chris Torek]

In article <I7************ *************** ***@comcast.com >
Joe Wright <jw*****@comcas t.net> wrote:
[Given a source file for which the C standards require "diagnostic s"

and using DJGPP,] I get the same complaints as you except they are
warnings. And there is an executable produced ... I wonder why I
get warnings and you get errors.

I have a stricter compiler. (Or rather, essentially the same
compiler with some minor gimmicking.)

The C standards say that "a diagnostic" is required, after which
anything may happen. Using "strictcc" I get a diagnostic and no
executable. See also -Werror and/or -pedantic-errors.

(At work, I use both Diab and gcc, which produce somewhat different
sets of warnings. Some code I consider "just fine" produces warnings
with Diab but not with gcc, e.g.:

#define MIN(a, b) ((a) < (b) ? (a) : (b))
...
x = MIN(x, limit);

will draw a warning with Diab under some flags [I have not yet
attempted to determine which ones]. Hence I cannot *always* have
"all warnings treated as errors". It is nice to use "strictcc" or
equivalent for personal projects, though, where I control all
aspects of the project, not just the C source file in question.)
--
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Wind River Systems
Salt Lake City, UT, USA (40°39.22'N, 111°50.29'W) [phone]
email: forget about it http://web.torek.net/torek/index.html
Reading email is like searching for food in the garbage, thanks to spammers.

[Old Wolf]

Chris Torek wrote:

grid <pr******@gmail .com> wrote:

#include<stdi o.h>
#include<stri ng.h>

int main()
{
char *c;
c = &c;
strcpy(c,"abc") ;
puts(&c);
retun 0;
}

This code does not even compile:
Adding the two obvious casts gives a program that fails when run
on some machines -- the "return" does something very bad, since
the bytes beyond &c that were overwritten held the return stack
frame.

How about the 'fixed' version:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main(void)
{
if ( sizeof(char *) >= sizeof "abc" )
{
char *c;
c = (char *)&c;
strcpy(c,"abc") ;
puts(&c);
}
return 0;
}

I think this is always well-defined. It's legal to cast any
object's address to (char *) and that pointer must point to
the object's representation. It's legal to modify memory
that has been allocated by you. This code never actually
evaluates "c" after the strcpy, so the issue of a trap
representation doesn't arise.