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From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: TC++: "floating point formats not linked"
Message-ID: <15406@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 10 Mar 91 19:31:31 GMT
References: <1991Feb9.193059.14322@ucselx.sdsu.edu> <279@nazgul.UUCP>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 17

In article <279@nazgul.UUCP>, bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright) writes:
- In article <15316@smoke.brl.mil> gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes:
- /You could of course also have the compiler pay special attention to the
- /format strings for *scanf() and *printf(), although that is not foolproof.
- I think this would be a bug in the compiler for these reasons:
- 1. The format strings may not be available to the compiler, as they
-    may be built dynamically or be in another module.
- 2. The library is supposed to be independent of the compiler. Having the
-    compiler recognize these things could make it very problematical if
-    somebody rolled their own printf/scanf.

1. When string literals WERE used, the compiler would be free to use
that fact.

2. A conforming hosted implementation includes library and language
together; a strictly conforming program is NOT allowed to provide its
own replacement for any of the standard library functions.