[vox-tech] C - passing chars and pointer to chars

[Micah J. Cowan]

On Sun, Jun 04, 2006 at 05:52:34PM -0500, Ken Bloom wrote:
> On Sunday 04 June 2006 13:58, Micah J. Cowan wrote:
> > On Sun, Jun 04, 2006 at 09:57:18AM -0500, Ken Bloom wrote:
> > > On Sunday 04 June 2006 09:05, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> > > > On Sat 03 Jun 06, 10:27 PM, Ken Bloom <kbloom at gmail.com> said:
> > > > > Cue, the **Fundemental axiom of the C++ type system**, stated
> > > > > as follows:
> > > > >   A* is automaitcally convertable to B* if and only if A is a
> > > > > B. (Likewise for pass by reference).
> > > > >
> > > > > (this is my own generalization though, and there may actually
> > > > > be exceptions)
> > > >
> > > > Although this was interesting to read, it doesn't say much other
> > > > than to restate my observation in a more sophisticated way.
> > >
> > > IMO, all that matters is that the axiom is the reason.
> >
> > Except the axiom is rather far from the truth, only an ideal.
> >
> > C++ is more strongly typed than C. I am not a language theorist, but
> > I believe it is still not considered "strongly typed".
> >
> > The ability to silently convert from int to char (your compiler might
> > actually complain about it in some circumstances: a compiler is
> > allowed to complain about whatever the hell it wants, but there's no
> > requirement to here, and in most cases, it won't) illustrates one
> > exception, certainly.
> 
> That's not an IS_A relationship. That's automatic conversion.

That was exactly my point. However, on looking back, I misread your
axiom to say "A is automatically convertable to B if and only if..."

My bad.

-- 
Micah J. Cowan
Programmer, musician, typesetting enthusiast, gamer...
http://micah.cowan.name/