On 12/05/2025 22:25, Keith Thompson wrote:...
I think that a lot of C programmers misunderstand what "compatible>
types" means. Many seem to think that two types are compatible if
they have the same representation and can be assigned without a cast.
>
Yes. Basically, most C programmers are not particularly aware of the
technical definitions of some of the terms in C standards where they
differ from common usage. The word "compatible" in English means that
the things in question can work together or fit together.
That's pretty much what it means in C. Two C types are compatible in C
if the C standard *guarantees* that they can work together - that you
can use the types interchangeably. The tricky part is the definition of
which pairs of types the C standard makes those guarantees for.
The key point is that the undefined behavior of code which treats
incompatible types as if they were compatible could also be that they
work together, too, depending upon the implementation.
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