Xref: utzoo alt.religion.computers:2118 comp.lang.c:34440
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!hsdndev!spdcc!ima!dirtydog!karl
From: karl@ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Argument declaration style (Was: ANSI C prototypes)
Message-ID: <1990Dec02.224903.8116@dirtydog.ima.isc.com>
Date: 2 Dec 90 22:49:03 GMT
References: <3933.27353319@cc.helsinki.fi> <_1X6_32@xds13.ferranti.com> <3944.27367fb2@cc.helsinki.fi> <1990Nov06.233654.29974@dirtydog.ima.isc.com> <1990Nov28.183850.20592@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Sender: news@dirtydog.ima.isc.com (NEWS ADMIN)
Reply-To: karl@ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Followup-To: alt.religion.computers
Organization: Interactive Systems
Lines: 23

In article <1990Nov28.183850.20592@ccu.umanitoba.ca> salomon@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Dan Salomon) writes:
>In article <1990Nov06.233654.29974@dirtydog.ima.isc.com> karl@ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer) writes:
>>... (Also, I very rarely have a function whose prototype doesn't fit on a
>>single line.)  ... Even with pre-ANSI code I use
>>	void foo(x, y) char *x; int y; {
>
>This is kind of a wimpy example isn't it?  [My code would look more like]
>ST_Gen_Class *ST_Lookup_No_Err (char *found_symb; Scope_Level_Ptr Start_Scope);

I stand by my example.  I find short names easier to read than longer ones, as
long as they're mnemonic.  (In real code the parameters would probably be
named `s' and `n', and if necessary their purpose would be described in a
block comment above the function, which would not be called `foo'.)

In a quick scan of my directory, I find that, of 1491 function definitions in
my style, only 26 of them (1.7%) consume 80 or more columns.

>For long headers like these, splitting the formal parameters across lines
>improves readability.

I strongly disagree.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (karl@ima.isc.com or uunet!ima!karl), The Walking Lint


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com