Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!twg.com!david From: david@twg.com (David S. Herron) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: why arent there any c-interpreter ? Keywords: c interpreter Message-ID: <8418@gollum.twg.com> Date: 10 Dec 90 22:27:35 GMT References: <3303@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de> <6396@harrier.ukc.ac.uk> Reply-To: david@twg.com (David S. Herron) Organization: The Wollongong Group, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 40 In article <6396@harrier.ukc.ac.uk> dac@ukc.ac.uk (David Clear) writes: >In article <3303@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de> admerlev@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Arnd Merlevede ) writes: >>i would like to know why there aren't any c-interprters out there. >>it would be nice to test small pieces of code interactively... > >HiSoft in the UK do a C interpreter for the Atari ST. That proves they exist. There is also Saber-C which runs on a few Unix (4.3BSD) platforms and is an *extremely* nice debugging environment. It includes a gee-whizzy-wig graphical interface that shows code as you're tracing through it, draws pictures of the data structures being used, draws pictures of cross-references between procedures, and has a "compiler" that is both pickier than lint and is smarter than lint since it doesn't complain about silly things like lint will do. >I think interpreting C is as close to blasphemy as you can get with a >programming language. No, my son, thou doesn't comprehend ... many times one comes to solutions by adding another level of indirection. (<-- recursive operation) In the case of Saber C that level gives you run time checking of lots of things which are hard/impossible with `C' like array bounds checking blowing away information malloc() uses internally for memory allocation using variables before being set parameter checking (I know.. this is an ANSI C feature, but I don't have any ANSI C compilers available to me besides GNU-CC) etc.. >Dave. David -- <- David Herron, an MMDF & WIN/MHS guy, <- Formerly: David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <- <- "bnews must die" -- From: Rick Adams