Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!lupine!rfg
From: rfg@NCD.COM (Ron Guilmette)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: ansi c output from cfront(s)
Message-ID: <1273@lupine.NCD.COM>
Date: 21 Aug 90 01:13:43 GMT
References: <9008191857.13779@nowhere.uucp>
Organization: Network Computing Devices, Inc., Mt. View, CA
Lines: 45

In article <9008191857.13779@nowhere.uucp> sking@nowhere.uucp (steven king) writes:
<
<in my earlier post about MSC choking on the output of cfront
<(Guidelines || Intek) using the +a (ansi c) switch, I think I wasnt clear
<about what MSC didnt like; protos generated by cfront of the form
<
<	void __dt__3fooFv(struct foo * __0this, int );
<
<cause MSC to complain "syntax error : ')' " for the line in question;
<appearently it expecting a tag for the second arguement. Editing the output
<of cfront to produce
<
<	void __dt__3fooFv(struct foo * __0this, int free);
<
<and MSC compiles it without a complaint.
...
<so the question remains, to whom do I complain to? Intek and Guidelines (AT&T)
<or Microsoft?

Looking at the syntax given in section 3.5.4 of the Dec. 7 1988 draft ANSI
C standard, it appears clear that each parameter declaration in a
parameter declaration list may include either an actual declarator
or an (optional) abstract declarator (i.e. nothing).

For some strange reason, I though at first that I recalled some ANSI C
rule that said that if, in your function prototype, one or more parameter
declarations included explicit names for the parameters, then all of them
had to.  Looking at the (draft) standard however, I can find no such rule,
so I must have been wrong.  Section 3.5.4.3 certainly lists no such
constraint.

ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE: GCC accepts either of the declarations above.

CONCLUSION: Complain to Microsoft.

Note however that people inside AT&T have occasionally been known to
frequent these parts, and perhaps they will notice the trouble you've
gotten into.  With luck, they will also solve this problem on their
end, since there is no particularly good reason for cfront to be
putting out *any* parameter names in <forward> function declarations.
-- 

// Ron Guilmette  -  C++ Entomologist
// Internet: rfg@ncd.com      uucp: ...uunet!lupine!rfg
// Motto:  If it sticks, force it.  If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.