(j3.2006) same types

[Aleksandar Donev]

On Thursday 01 November 2007 13:50, Bill Long wrote:

> But, is this really intended to be standard conforming?
Yes. As proof, consider BIND(C) types. There is nothing prohibiting them from 
having default initialization. Yet on the C side they don't. In fact, I 
recall we argued about this not too long ago.

As Richard explained this some time ago, default initialization is something 
that is not visible "from the outside". The caller of sub cannot tell whether 
sub used default initialization or explicit assignments, or whatever, to get 
the return value it did. In this sense, default initialization is a tool 
(like calling a routine to set the values) and not necessarily a property of 
the type itself.

All IMVHO. I certainly lack historical knowledge on this...
Aleks

-- 
Aleksandar Donev, Ph.D.
Lawrence Postdoctoral Fellow @ LLNL
High Performance Computational Materials Science and Chemistry
E-mail: donev1 at llnl.gov
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