Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
From: design AT netcom DOT com (Chris Waters)
Subject: Re: Labelled array display element funny
Message-ID: <designDz11q8.7GI@netcom.com>
Organization: Design and Delivery
References: <7E03B4350B AT fs2 DOT mt DOT umist DOT ac DOT uk> <53gjj8$5l7 AT mark DOT ucdavis DOT edu>
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 21:15:43 GMT
Lines: 53
Sender: design AT netcom4 DOT netcom DOT com
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

In article <53gjj8$5l7 AT mark DOT ucdavis DOT edu>,
Jeffrey Taylor <elric AT wheel DOT dcn DOT davis DOT ca DOT us> wrote:
>A.Appleyard (A DOT APPLEYARD AT fs2 DOT mt DOT umist DOT ac DOT uk) wrote:
>:   This program:-
>: 
>: 1    #include<stdio.h>
>: 2    typedef struct{char *codeno; char*name;} craft;
>: 3    craft dsub[128]={
>: 4         [1] {"CH79","Aphanistor"},
>: 5        [55] {"DS1 ","Quackers"},
>: 6        [56] {"DS2 ","Donald"},
>: 7        [23] {"BA32","Big Jim"},
>: 8        [35] {"FA65","Trelawney"}};
>: 9    main(){}
>: 
>:   produced these errors:-
>: t$.cc:5: parse error before `['
>: t$.cc:5: warning: aggregate has a partly bracketed initializer
>: t$.cc:6: parse error before `['
>: 
>:   What have I done wrong here? Or can't I use array element labels when the
>: elements are subarray displays?
>
>Correct.  You cannot use array labels in C initializers.

Unless you're using gcc.  And gee, guess what?  :)

The correct answer is that if you have an array of structures, you must
name the structure fields in your initializers:

    craft dsub[128]={
         [1] {codeno: "CH79", name: "Aphanistor"},
        [55] {codeno: "DS1 ", name: "Quackers"},
        [56] {codeno: "DS2 ", name: "Donald"},
        [23] {codeno: "BA32", name: "Big Jim"},
        [35] {codeno: "FA65", name: "Trelawney"}};

And in the future, if you have gcc-specific questions, I recommend
asking on one of the gnu newsgroups (gnu.gcc.*).  The djgpp people are
great with questions about accessing DPMI from gcc and other DOS related
stuff, but, as I think you can tell, they don't support or maintain gcc
directly--they simply use whatever the GNU folks provide.

Of course, one could hope that they would look through the info files
provided with gcc (which is where I found the answer above).  But then,
you might have tried the same thing, rather than asking people who
mostly didn't have any idea of what you were talking about.

Did I mention that what you're doing is not portable to any compilers
besides gcc?  (Of course, that's not much of a limitation, since gcc
runs on just about everything.)  And just how _did_ you figure out that
you could do that without figuring out how to do it correctly? 
Inquiring minds want to know.  :)