Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 11:08:04 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: Peter Berdeklis <peter AT atmosp DOT physics DOT utoronto DOT ca>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: [Q] array declaration 
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SGI.3.91.971007161047.19768A-100000@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.971008110125.28262M-100000@is>
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On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, Peter Berdeklis wrote:

> Put the extern declaration in a header file, which is included by any 
> file which references the array, including the file that allocates the 
> array.

I think this won't solve Victor's problem, because you still have to 
declare the array in two different places.  One place is the header file 
you are suggesting, where it should be declared extern:

	extern char array[280];

The other place is that single source file which has to *define* the 
array (so it gets allocated some space):

	char array[280];

Some programs also need to initialize the array, so they'll need to say 
something like so:

	char array[280] = {1, 2, 3, 4};

But anyway, you need at least two different declarations.

I think that saying "extern char array[];", e.g. in the header suggested
by you, is a better solution, since you don't need to mention the 
dimension twice.

There are other solutions, but none of them is elegant.  This happens 
to be one of the ugliest problems in C.