Non-constant initializers

[Kaz Kylheku]

On Tuesday, April 21, 1998 5:14 PM, Ross Alexander 
[SMTP:r.alexander@auckland.ac.nz] wrote:
> It seems that code like
>
> #include <stdio.h>
>
> FILE *f = stdin;
>
> int main()
> {
> ..
> }
>
> fail because of non-constant initializer.  This did not happen before.
> Is there any way to tell egcs-980321 how to handle this, or should I
> upgrade.

You need to upgrade your program to valid C. Nowhere in the standard
is it required that ``stdin'' be a constant expression; hence your
program is ill formed.

For example, stdin could quite naturally be be a static object
declared as

	extern FILE *stdin;

after which stdin is anything but a constant expression.

C programs which depend on stdin or stdout to expand to
address constants are simply not portable.