Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c++:4090 gnu.g++:291 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!columbia!cs!fox From: fox@cs.cs.columbia.edu (David Fox) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,gnu.g++ Subject: Default argument values Message-ID: Date: 23 Jul 89 19:12:17 GMT Sender: news@cs.columbia.edu Distribution: comp Organization: Columbia University Computer Science Lines: 19 It seems to me that as long as you are going to have default argument values, you might as well allow any combination of arguments to be omitted. I often find myself trying to figure out what order to put the arguments of a function in so that I can give the "right ones" default values. I often fail to find that order: many functions just aren't that "linear". The way to do this is to allow caller to name the parameters the way Ada does: foo(parm1 = a, parm3 = b, parm2 = c). Is it too late to add this, or something like it, to C++? G++? Would it be a Good Thing? Would it break anything? Has it already been discussed? Can I have it by Tuesday? David Fox fox@cs.columbia.edu P.S. If it can't be part of the language, perhaps this could be done with a preprocessor?