Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: __STDC__ defined as zero a problem
Message-ID: <1989Jun27.164758.1379@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <225800190@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> <2029@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 89 16:47:58 GMT

In article <2029@dataio.Data-IO.COM> bright@dataio.Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright) writes:
>	1. Trigraph support significantly slows down the scanner, which is
>	   the most time-consuming part of a compiler. Trigraphs are useless,
>	   and so are left out of the Useful C mode.

It's not necessary for trigraphs to be in the scanner at all, provided the
implementation supports them *somehow* (a sed script is what I'd use) for
official conformance.

>	2. Compilers for many machines/OSs need extensions in order to
>	   efficiently support them...

Let's be honest here.  Compilers for *one* particular machine and *one*
particular OS need extensions because of the awful brain-damaged Intel
processor.  It is actually possible to include such extensions without
breaking conformance even slightly, if you are careful about naming.

>	3. The ANSI C library is a subset of the library real programmers
>	   expect to find declared in the usual .h files. In ANSI C mode,
>	   these declarations will be #if'd out.

Admittedly an issue, and the best case I've yet seen for __STDC__ == 0.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as the  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
US government is to freedom.   | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu