Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c:33357 alt.religion.computers:1986 Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!clyde.concordia.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!salomon From: salomon@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Dan Salomon) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,alt.religion.computers Subject: Re: ANSI C prototypes Message-ID: <1990Nov2.030556.27759@ccu.umanitoba.ca> Date: 2 Nov 90 03:05:56 GMT References: <1005@christopher-robin.cs.bham.ac.uk> <1906@necisa.ho.necisa.oz> Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada Lines: 27 In article rjc@uk.ac.ed.cstr (Richard Caley) writes: >In article <1906@necisa.ho.necisa.oz> boyd@necisa.ho.necisa.oz (Boyd Roberts) writes: > > > Right on! The function prototypes are just stupid. > > I shouldn't have to type: > > extern gore *good(const char *vomit); > > to get the functionality of type checking of function arguments. > > The compiler and loader should do it. > > I want my errors when I compile things, not when some poor guy tries > to use it. > You are both right. Repeatedly typing function prototypes is a tedious waste of time, but we really would like type errors reported at compile time. A possible solution would be to have a utility for building libraries of function prototypes from source code. The compiler could check source code usage against usage in this library. The linker would have to repeat the check to make sure that the prototype library didn't get out of synch with the object library. -- Dan Salomon -- salomon@ccu.UManitoba.CA Dept. of Computer Science / University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2N2 / (204) 275-6682