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Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut.

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Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> wrote:
> On 2 juin, 19:39, j...@toerring.de (Jens Thoms Toerring) wrote:

> > (...) BTW, I jut noticed something funny:
> > the output of this program
> > #include <stdio.h>
> > double a, b;
> > int main( void )
> > {   double c, d;
> >     printf( "global diff: %td\n", ( char * ) &a - ( char * ) &b );
> >     printf( "local diff:  %td\n", ( char * ) &c - ( char * ) &d );
> >     return 0;
> > }
> > is
> > global diff: 8
> > local diff:  -8

> I understand that : the address allocation for global
> variables increases from the starting address,
> while for local variables allocated on the stack
> the stack pointer is decreased for each new variable.

Let's say it fits your mental model of what's going on
under the hood. This is quite often correct but sometimes
also can lead on astray. Learning assembler before C has
for sure its advantages, e.g. pointers, which seem to con-
fuse quite a number of people at first, are something ob-
vious etc. The danger is that one finds a lot of things
that seem to have an easy explanation since there seem to
be an obvious fit to how one would do it in assembler and
is thus sometimes tempted to wrongly extrapolate from that
(or take it for the truth). Knowing assembler (and maybe
even how the linker works on a certain machine) can thus
be quite helpful to build a mental image of how things
probably are working, but one has to be careful not to
blindly assume that things really work exactly as one
would expect from that. Can be a bit painful going from
"I know exactly what the machine is doing" to "what are
the damnded rules for this strange behaviour in C";-)

In the end I found it more useful trying to avoid to look
at C through my "assembler goggles" and instead accept it
as something different, having its own rules that I had to
learn and that not always could be easily explained in terms
of what I knew from assembler (on the bery limited set of
architectures I learned it for). Admittedly, that can be
harder than with languages that are that far removed from
assembler that one has no idea at all anymore what might
be going on under the hood.

> > the result would always be 42.
> >> (Douglas Noel Adams, uh ?)
> > Got it all in one go ;-)

> Well, on MY computer the correct
> value is 41.999999999999999999

;-)
                       Regards, Jens
-- 
  \   Jens Thoms Toerring  ___      jt@toerring.de
   \__________________________      http://toerring.de

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Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 02:49 -0700
  Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. China Blue Max <chine.bleu@yahoo.com> - 2012-06-02 03:03 -0700
    Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 03:17 -0700
  Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. jacob navia <jacob@spamsink.net> - 2012-06-02 12:06 +0200
    Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 03:25 -0700
      Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2012-06-02 10:59 -0400
        Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 13:02 -0700
          Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-06-02 14:51 -0700
  Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-06-02 22:10 +1200
  Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. jt@toerring.de (Jens Thoms Toerring) - 2012-06-02 10:31 +0000
    Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 03:59 -0700
      Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. jt@toerring.de (Jens Thoms Toerring) - 2012-06-02 11:55 +0000
        Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. pete <pfiland@mindspring.com> - 2012-06-02 08:15 -0400
        Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 05:37 -0700
          Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. jt@toerring.de (Jens Thoms Toerring) - 2012-06-02 13:35 +0000
            Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 06:47 -0700
              Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-06-02 15:08 +0100
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 07:37 -0700
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-06-02 16:17 +0100
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-06-02 19:02 +0100
              Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. jt@toerring.de (Jens Thoms Toerring) - 2012-06-02 17:39 +0000
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-06-02 15:27 -0400
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 12:58 -0700
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-06-02 16:15 -0400
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2012-06-03 15:27 -0500
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Noob <root@localhost> - 2012-06-05 09:12 +0200
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. David Brown <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> - 2012-06-05 09:21 +0200
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 12:53 -0700
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-06-02 21:16 +0100
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. jt@toerring.de (Jens Thoms Toerring) - 2012-06-02 21:18 +0000
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-06-02 17:38 -0400
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. jt@toerring.de (Jens Thoms Toerring) - 2012-06-02 22:15 +0000
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-03 00:51 -0700
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2012-06-03 11:46 -0700
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-03 00:13 -0700
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-06-02 14:50 -0700
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2012-06-03 15:34 -0500
          Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2012-06-03 15:25 -0500
        Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-06-02 08:46 -0400
        Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 05:46 -0700
          Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 05:53 -0700
            Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Ike Naar <ike@sverige.freeshell.org> - 2012-06-02 17:08 +0000
            Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. "io_x" <a@b.c.invalid> - 2012-06-03 10:33 +0200
              Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. "io_x" <a@b.c.invalid> - 2012-06-03 11:32 +0200
      Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. pete <pfiland@mindspring.com> - 2012-06-02 08:03 -0400
        Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 05:18 -0700
    Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. "io_x" <a@b.c.invalid> - 2012-06-03 10:32 +0200
  Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-06-02 11:45 +0100
    Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 04:17 -0700
      Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-06-02 12:40 +0100
        Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-06-02 12:51 +0100
        Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 04:57 -0700
          Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-06-02 14:00 +0100
            Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 06:12 -0700
              Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-06-02 09:58 -0400
                Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2012-06-03 15:41 -0500
              Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2012-06-02 11:45 -0500
  Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Noob <root@localhost> - 2012-06-02 16:05 +0200
    Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. Jean-Christophe <5.d@free.fr> - 2012-06-02 07:48 -0700
      Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-06-02 18:31 +0100
      Re: Q: Local variables initialization shortcut. jt@toerring.de (Jens Thoms Toerring) - 2012-06-02 17:50 +0000

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