Address of array

Daniel R. Levy levy at ttrdc.UUCP
Wed Mar 26 13:30:33 AEST 1986


In article <150 at sdchema.sdchem.UUCP>, tps at sdchem.UUCP (Tom Stockfisch) writes:
>[]
>Joe Yao replies
>>I don't really see what the problem is that people are moaning
>>about.  If you want a pointer to the array, the array name itself
>>coerces to a pointer containing the memory location at the beginning
>>of the array.  There is no such thing as a pointer to the whole
>>array:  that is a Pasqualische or Fortranian notion.

'Scuse me, can somebody educate me as to why that would be a "Fortranian"
(I withhold opinion on the Pascal allegation) notion?  I was under the
impression that most, if not all, Fortrans implement array references pretty
much the same way that C does:  by reference to the address of the first element
in the array, with offsets computed according to the subscripts and then
automatically dereferenced for use.   The only differences I could see is
in argument passing where C can pass things by value, whereas Fortran must
pass by reference.

        FORTRAN               C

      INTEGER I(1000) <--> int i[1000];
      J = I(50)       <--> int j = i[49];
      I(3) = 8        <--> i[2] = 8;
      CALL FOO(I)     <--> foo(i); /* pass address of first element */
      CALL FOO(I(3))  <--> foo(&i[2]); /* or of another? */
      ...                      ...
      SUBROUTINE FOO(K) <> foo(k)  /* and dereference on the "other side" */
      INTEGER K(1000)      int k[1000]; {
      WRITE(*,*)K(3)       printf("%d\n",k[2]);
      ...                      ...
      END                  }
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|        skokie, illinois        |
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