Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!aussie!rex
From: rex@aussie.COM (Rex Jaeschke)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re: functions within functions
Message-ID: <53.UUL1.3#5077@aussie.COM>
Date: 9 Feb 91 21:58:54 GMT
References: <1991Feb8.232835.19022@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Organization: Journal of C Language Translation
Lines: 26

> Re: functions within functions

MetaWare's High C has had nested functions now probably for 4-5 years. 
(Interestingly, MetaWare is/was a big user of Pascal, and High C versions 
earlier than the most recent one were actually written in their extended 
Pascal.)

I documented their nested function extension (along with several other 
extensions) in Vol 2, num 3 (Dec 1990) of The Journal of C Language 
Translation on page 240. (Their very interesting iterator extension is 
covered in Vol 2/4 in Mar '91.)

To add nested functions they use ! as a postfix punctuator in function 
declarations. Late in 1990 Bjarne Stroustrup proposed using this notation 
to solve a problem re alternate trigraphs at the ISO C level. As such, I 
informed him this conflicted with MetaWare's prior art.

Rex

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