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From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: On whether C has first-class composable functions
Message-ID: <1988:Jan703:32:5191@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 7 Jan 91 03:32:51 GMT
References: <1991Jan5.182428.615@mathrt0.math.chalmers.se> <1991Jan05.222639.6387@dirtydog.ima.isc.com> <1991Jan6.205005.4579@mathrt0.math.chalmers.se>
Organization: IR
Lines: 16

In article <1991Jan6.205005.4579@mathrt0.math.chalmers.se> augustss@cs.chalmers.se (Lennart Augustsson) writes:
> In article <1991Jan05.222639.6387@dirtydog.ima.isc.com> karl@ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer) writes:
> >In article <1991Jan5.182428.615@mathrt0.math.chalmers.se> augustss@cs.chalmers.se (Lennart Augustsson) writes:
> >>[In C extended with anonymous functions, we could write compose():]
> >>	typedef int (*intintfun)(int);
> >>	intintfun compose(intintfun f, intintfun g) {
> >>	    return (int ANONYMOUS(int x) { return f(g(x))) };
> >>	}

Your definition of unnamed functions did not magically turn them into
function pointers. Either you are trying to return a function by value,
which is impossible in C without a *semantic* extension; or you are
returning a pointer to that function, in which case, as Karl said, the
pointer is useless after the return.

---Dan