To: Deborah Donovan From: David R Tribble on Mon, Feb 9, 1998 1:44 PM Subject: Comments on ISO/IEC CD 9899 (C9X) Message-Id: <2.2.32.19980209182257.008f8ac4@central.beasys.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 09 Feb 1998 12:22:57 -0600 To: ddonovan@itic.nw.dc.us From: David R Tribble Subject: Comments on ISO/IEC CD 9899 (C9X) Public Comment Number(s) PC-____ to PC-____ ISO/IEC CD 9899 (SC22N2620) Public Comment =========================================== Date: 1998-02-09 Author: David R. Tribble Author Affiliation: Self Postal Address: 6004 Cave River Dr. Plano, TX 75093-6951 USA E-mail Address: dtribble@technologist.com david.tribble@central.beasys.com dtribble@flash.net Telephone Number: +1 972 738 6125, 16:00-00:00 UTC +1 972 964 1729, 01:00-05:00 UTC Fax Number: +1 972 738 6111 Number of individual comments: 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Comment 1. Category: Normative change to existing feature retaining the original intent Committee Draft subsection: 5.1.2.2.1. Title: Modifiable argv pointers Detailed description: Section 5.1.2.2.1 "Program startup" states that the 'argv' parameter to main() and the strings pointed to by the argv array shall be modifiable by the program. However, no mention is made of whether or not the pointers themselves shall be modifiable. It is my understanding that some systems allow the pointers to be modified without ill effects to the program, while other systems do not. Proposal: In order to clarify the issue, I propose that the following be appended to the last paragraph of [5.1.2.2.1 #2]: Whether or not the pointers of the argv array shall be modifiable by the program is implementation-defined. If they are modifiable, they shall retain their last-stored values between program startup and program termination. ------------------------------------------------------------------------