Uninitialized externals and statics

[Henry Spencer]

In article <609 at paperboy.OSF.ORG> dbrooks at osf.org (David Brooks) writes:
>Anyway, I had a question: what is this assumption about "all bits
>zero" for the common case of initializing ints?  I wonder if there's
>any machine out there that represents int 0 with some other bit
>pattern...

It would be difficult, probably impossible, to build an ANSI-conforming
C implementation for such a machine.  ANSI C leaves representation of most
data types largely up to the implementor, but integers are pinned down
fairly thoroughly and pretty well have to be binary using one of the
orthodox representations.  I believe the standard is flexible enough in
key places for one's-complement to work, but more radical departures
from current orthodoxy will have trouble.
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