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From: Tim_CDC_Roberts@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: parsing the format string at compile time...
Message-ID: <23054@cup.portal.com>
Date: 13 Oct 89 20:30:31 GMT
References: <705@nixbur.UUCP> <11262@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 23

Regarding Modula-2 requiring the programmer to parse format strings:

C++ is very much like this, if you think about it.

   printf ("%d %s %d\n", 123, "What?", 456");

becomes:

   cout << 123 << ' ' << "What?" << ' ' << 456;

There are separate, overloaded definitions of the '<<' operator, each of
which knows how to format a particular type.

Ada kind of mixes the two.  You make a separate function call for each
item (like Modula-2), but they all have the same function name (thanks
to overloading).

  put (123);
  put (" ");
  put ("What?");  -- ...

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