Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: evaluating math w/o recompile
Message-ID: <1989Sep17.042157.29560@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <11068@smoke.BRL.MIL> <225800223@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: Sun, 17 Sep 89 04:21:57 GMT

In article <225800223@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>>You can't.  There is no way that line of math can be *executed* without
>>compiling it (in a very broad sense of the word), so trying to do it with
>>no recompiles is futile.  Either you invoke the C compiler, or you write
>>a mini-compiler as part of your program...
>
>Or, if you need to do it once or only a couple of times, write
>an interpreter. An interpreter can be written in portable C. 
>A compiler, of course, can't. You have to know the machine code.

You are assuming a very narrow definition of "compiler".  Note the phrase
"in a very broad sense of the word".  Not all translators referred to
as "compilers" generate machine code.
-- 
"Where is D.D. Harriman now,   |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
when we really *need* him?"    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu