Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re: struct comparison - reprise
Message-ID: <10593@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 23 Jul 89 11:20:39 GMT
References: <2874@solo3.cs.vu.nl> <1989Jul14.155312.2063@utzoo.uucp> <2272@auspex.auspex.com>
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 13

In article <2272@auspex.auspex.com>, guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) writes:
> Sorry, but if you want complex numbers as a data type in C that uses C
> operators, you can't get that just by pasting on new general "struct"
> operators; you either have to add it to the language, or go the C++
> route.

That's also my general observation:  When I need composite objects, I
practically always find that I also need operations on them beyond any
simple model that could reasonably be supported directly via language
operators.  Complex multiplication is just one of the simplest examples.
Since I have to provide a set of explicitly programmed operations anyway,
it is not a lot of additional bother that the language doesn't directly
support a few of them.