Subj : Re: how to initialize this?
To   : borland.public.cpp.borlandcpp
From : maeder@glue.ch (Thomas Maeder [TeamB])
Date : Thu Oct 16 2003 12:17 am

Eric <nospam@email.com> writes:

Your description is far too complicated for me to understand it. So just
a side note, which is unrelated to your question:

> typedef struct {
>   char *Name;
>   int  Value; 
> }TAnimal;
> 
> TAnimal Farm0[] = {{"dog", 0}, {"horse", 4}, {"cow", 6}};

This initializes the Name members of the Farm0 elements with the addresses
string literals. An implicit conversion from 'array of N char const' to
'pointer to char' (non-const) is performed each time. Such a conversion is
conforming to the ISO C++ Standard, but that standard also says that it is
deprecated.

The reason is that it's very easy for the inadvertent programmer to
accidentally modify a string literal through such a pointer to non-const.
Such a modification would cause your program to have undefined behavior.

So better define your struct like this:

typedef struct
{
  char const *Name;
  int Value;
} TAnimal;

If this type is only used from C++ code (and not from C code), the usual
way to define it would be

struct TAnimal
{
  char const *Name;
  int Value;
};

.