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From: sysmark@physics.utoronto.ca (Mark Bartelt)
Subject: A/UX cc -- a ghost from the past
Message-ID: <1991Feb13.122652.14565@helios.physics.utoronto.ca>
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Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 1991 12:26:52 GMT

We recently got A/UX for one of our MacIIs, and were appalled to discover
that the C compiler isn't X3J11 compliant.  The guy who uses that system
sent me the following last night:

| Subject: non-ANSI c
|
| Horror of horrors!  After converting all my beautifully prototyped
| mac interface programs to port over to AUX, I find that the AUX
| compiler is some prehistoric monster that doesn't respect the ANSI
| 'standard'.  Is there some kind of filter available to convert programs
| from ANSI to old format?

So, a couple of questions (aside from the obvious one, namely how does
Apple expect to be taken seriously if a recent major release of their
UNIX product doesn't even contain an X3J11 compliant compiler) ...

(1)  At the risk of starting a flame war, what are people's feelings
about alternative C compilers?  I've heard both wonderful things and
terrible things about gcc.  Someone spoke favourably about UniSoft's
compiler a few months ago, but a fellow from UniSoft replied that at
the time there were no plans to produce an A/UX 2.0 compatible version.
(For that matter, I've not looked at the UniSoft compiler, so I don't
know whether it's X3J11 compliant.  Is it?)

(2)  Apple folks:  Are there plans to step into the 1990s with the
next release of A/UX?  Will a "modern" C compiler come with 2.0.1,
or will we have to wait for 2.1 (or 3.0; or ...)?

(3)  As to the question of converting an ANSI C program, complete
with function prototypes, into something that can be shoved through
an old-fashioned C compiler:  I could probably cobble together some
sort of shell script, with judicious use of awk/sed/whatever, that
would do the job.  But, before I embark on this silly exercise, it
seems worth inquiring as to whether anyone else already has such a
tool.  If so, I'd appreciate hearing about it/them.

Thanks in advance.

--

Mark Bartelt                                            416/978-5619
Canadian Institute for                      sysmark@cita.toronto.edu
Theoretical Astrophysics                    sysmark@cita.utoronto.ca