Goal of C's “auto” keyword

Question

What is the goal of the \"auto\" keyword in C? With C++ 0x it got new meaning but does it mean that my code will break if I port C code over to a C++ 0x compiler?

Answer 1

This answer is wrong, see following question, I'm leaving the answer here as a reference.

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AFAIK C++0x's use of auto doesn't contradict C traditional usage of auto. In C auto is used together with the type.

auto char c1 = 'a'; // OK, old meaning of auto is still valid
auto c2 = 'b'; // OK, new meaning of auto (deduce c2 is a char)

The only place where it can change the meaning of the code is when auto was used together with the implicit int rule (if not type is specified -> it's an int) in which case the second line in my example used to have c2 of type int and now it's of type char.