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From: diamond@tkou02.enet.dec.com (diamond@tkovoa)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re: constant expressions
Message-ID: <1924@tkou02.enet.dec.com>
Date: 16 Aug 90 00:21:41 GMT
References: <1916@tkou02.enet.dec.com> <13550@smoke.BRL.MIL> <1923@tkou02.enet.dec.com> <13555@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: diamond@tkou02.enet.dec.com (diamond@tkovoa)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Japan , Tokyo
Lines: 21

In article <13555@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>In article <1923@tkou02.enet.dec.com> diamond@tkou02.enet.dec.com (diamond@tkovoa) writes:
>>Yes, section 3.4 says that a constant expression CAN be evaluated during
>>translation.  It is sufficiently clear that the translator is NOT REQUIRED
>>to do so.
>Wrong, at least when the translator needs to evaluate the expression in
>order to perform the translation.

Besides clearly NOT REQUIRING translation-time evaluations, I have also seen
clear REASONS for this non-requirement.  If your target machine can handle
128-bit ints, your host machine is not required to provide a simulator.
"Wrong" appears wrong.

>However, a conforming
>implementation must ACT exactly as though constant expressions ARE
>evaluated in many contexts.

Yes, on this we agree -- but it is still a guess.
-- 
Norman Diamond, Nihon DEC     diamond@tkou02.enet.dec.com
This is me speaking.  If you want to hear the company speak, you need DECtalk.