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From: Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: error: initializer element is not constant|
Date: Mon, 08 May 2017 09:30:47 -0700
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Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> writes:
[...]
> I think you should back-up a bit.  How do you plan to use this data?  I
> ask because "a pointer to a string" is not well-defined in C.

In fact it is.

>                                                                A C
> strings are not a type but a format of data (essentially insisting on a
> null terminator) so must program represent a "pointer to string" as
> char * -- i.e. as a pointer to the first character of the string.

N1570 7.1.1p1:

    A *string* is a contiguous sequence of characters terminated by
    and including the first null character.  [...]  A *pointer to a
    string* is a pointer to its initial (lowest addressed) character.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Working, but not speaking, for JetHead Development, Inc.
"We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this."
    -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"