Probably because you are converting a pointer to a string to a character.

When you define str1[8], the variable str1 is really a pointer that points to the 8 bytes of memory set aside for str1. When you define str1 as just "char str1", str1 is actually one byte of memory set aside to hold a single character. They aren't the same thing.

Change your extern line to:

extern xdata char str1[];

And it should compile and link fine. I justr tied it under Keil.

Craig Steiner