ansi weirdness

[Andrew Hume]

In article <11305 at alice.UUCP>, andrew at alice.UUCP (Andrew Hume) writes:
~ 
~ the following C fragment fails with a strict ANSI compiler (lcc)
~ but compiles with sloppy ones (e.g. gcc):
~ 
~ 	typedef int (*fn)(struct x *);
~ 	extern int fn1(struct x *);
~ 	extern fn *fp = fn1;
~ 
~ the ostensible reason is that the two struct x's are different
~ (or at least, have different scopes).
~ this may be technically correct but is just wrong.
~ can anyone explain why anyone would want this batshit behaviour?

let me correct an error and clarify; the fragment contains a bug - it should be

 	typedef int (*fn)(struct x *);
 	extern int fn1(struct x *);
 	extern fn fp = fn1;

i understand technically (i think) what is going on.
the first line introduces a type struct x which goes away
at the end of the prototype and can never be used again.
my question is why didn't ANSI do what C++ does here and export
the type up to file scope?


andrew at research.att.com