-=> Herman Schonfeld wrote to All <=-

 HS> char *text;
 HS> 
 HS> int main()
 HS> {
 HS>    FILE *fp = fopen("CRAP.C", "r+");
 HS>    fgets(text, 100, fp);
 HS>    return 0;
 HS> }

You haven't allocated any memory to *text.

 HS> this fails to run. If i declare `text' inside main() it does work.
 HS> why does this happen?

Beats me -- it shouldn't work then, either. :-) Actually I do have a guess
as to what's going on...

 HS> Is there something about globally declared pointers that make them
 HS> function differently from internally declared pointers? 

If not explicitly initialized, globals get initialized to 0, while locals
are filled with garbage (whatever happened to be in memory). In your case,
that means that the global version of *text is NULL, while the local
version is pointing to some random block of memory that happens to work.

... Ah, Dinner's ready.  The smoke detector just went off!

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