> According to "C, A Reference Manual," if the variable is static or
 > external, then the initializer must be constant.  However, for
 > automatic variables any expression can be used.  (p.85)  Therefore
 > your example is perfectly legal.

It is, yes (Paul's original post never got here for some reason :-().

 > Kind of makes sense too, since global/static variables are
 > initialized only once before main executes.  While automatic
 > variables gets initialized each time through the function, so
 > any expression simply becomes the first statement the function
 > executes.

In C++, non-constant expressions and function calls can also be used as
initialisers even for static/global variables.  I thought it worth
mentioning as being one difference between std C and C++.


  cheers,
  david

---