From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon May 19 09:40:38 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA02111 for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 19 May 1997 09:40:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.50]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA01892; Mon, 19 May 1997 09:38:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id JAA24310; Mon, 19 May 1997 09:30:17 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199705191630.JAA24310@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: Variable initialization To: bde@zeta.org.au (Bruce Evans) Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 09:30:17 -0700 (MST) Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, j@uriah.heep.sax.de, core@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <199705191131.VAA13078@godzilla.zeta.org.au> from "Bruce Evans" at May 19, 97 09:31:41 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > With old compilers, it was a pessimization to initalize variables > unnecessarily or long before they are used. With modern compilers, > it defeats automatic checking for uninitialized variables and may > still prevent some optimizations. A wrongly initialized variable > is worse than an initialized one since it can't be checked for. Won't an incorrect initialization become ovbious when the code fails to function? Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.