Initialisation of Character Arrays

[Paul D. Smith]

[] Consider the following code:

[] static          char s1[] = "String One";
[] static unsigned char s2[] = "String Two";
[] static signed   char s3[] = "String Three";

[...]

[] gcc -c -ansi -pedantic u.c
[] u.c:2: warning: ANSI C forbids string initializer except for `char' elements
[] u.c:3: warning: ANSI C forbids string initializer except for `char' elements

[...]  Paragraph 3.5.7 of the ANSI Standard says:

[]    An array of character type may be initialized by a character string
[] literal, optionally enclosed in braces.  Successive characters of the
[] character string literal ... initialize the elements of the array.

[] The question is, does the code above comply with the Standard?

I had the same question when I got that same error.  I also was not
able to find anything truly specific (all I've got is K&R II).  In
Section A8.7, p. 219, you can find the above quote (almost verbatim),
and also the following:

  ... a wide character literal may initialize an array of type
  `wchar_t'.

It's unfortunate the standard says `character' instead of `type char'
if they didn't mean to include explicitly signed or unsigned chars; in
light of the specific reference to `wchar_t' type I assumed that if
they had not meant to include signed and unsigned chars they would
have been more precise ...

But, I changed my code anyway ... a pain, but I hate warnings ...
--

                                                                paul
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| Paul D. Smith                          | pds at lemming.webo.dg.com |
| Data General Corp.                     |                         |
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| Open Network Applications Department   |                         |
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