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If I understand right that global variables (which go into data segment) in C are initialized where auto variables (which go into stack) are not. or perhaps the other way round?
Why is it so? What is merit of compiler not initializing both kind of variables? Does it increase speed etc?
As you say, global variables go in the data segment, so their value is contained in the final executable, and it might as well be an initialised value as there is no performance difference either way.
On the other hand, local variables are allocated onto the stack, which is set up at run time, so initialising them would have a performance hit.