[Info-vax] Possible C compiler static variable initialization problem.

[JohnF]

BillPedersen <pedersen at ccsscorp.com> wrote:
> I have posted the description of the problem
> on the tickets section of VMS-Ports:
>     https://sourceforge.net/p/vms-ports/tickets/79/
> Basically, I have a pointer to a structure that is
> statically initialized as a Null and I then pass
> the address of that pointer to a function but the
> information seen in the function is not a Null and
> so the function goes nuts.
> Any thoughts or suggestions on the solution are welcome.
> Thanks, Bill.

Your problem description starts off,
   I have a situation where in C I have defined:
      _stringlist *dblist = NULL;
   This happens to be in the file with the failing function.
   Then in the header file shared by two files I have:
      extern _stringlist *dblist;

That sounds to me like your first file ultimately
contains >>both<< statements
      extern _stringlist *dblist;     /* from the shared .h file */
      _stringlist *dblist = NULL;     /* coded directly in the file */
possibly in the reverse order, depending on where your #include is.
You >>don't<< want that extern in the module defining/allocating it.
So that would be wrong (or I'm mis-reading you and I'm wrong).
-- 
John Forkosh  ( mailto:  j at f.com  where j=john and f=forkosh )