Tentative definitions in C and linking

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See also What are extern variables in C. This is mentioned in the C standard in informative Annex J as a common extension:

J.5.11 Multiple external definitions

There may be more than one external definition for the identifier of an object, with or without the explicit use of the keyword extern; if the definitions disagree, or more than one is initialized, the behavior is undefined (6.9.2).

Warning

As @litb points out here, and as stated in my answer to the cross-referenced question, using multiple definitions for a global variable leads to undefined behaviour, which is the standard’s way of saying “anything could happen”. One of the things that can happen is that the program behaves as you expect; and J.5.11 says, approximately, “you might be lucky more often than you deserve”. But a program that relies on multiple definitions of an extern variable – with or without the explicit ‘extern’ keyword – is not a strictly conforming program and not guaranteed to work everywhere. Equivalently: it contains a bug which may or may not show itself.

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