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From: philbo@dhw68k.cts.com (Phil Lindsay)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Expressions in initializers
Message-ID: <1991Mar13.042737.26728@dhw68k.cts.com>
Date: 13 Mar 91 04:27:37 GMT
References: <760@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu> <1991Mar4.144939.8311@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1032@caslon.cs.arizona.edu>
Organization: Wolfskill & Dowling residence; Anaheim, CA (USA)
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In article <1032@caslon.cs.arizona.edu> dave@cs.arizona.edu (Dave P. Schaumann) writes:
>In article <1991Mar4.144939.8311@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) writes:
>>sqrt(2.0) is an expression. It CAN be evaluated at compile time. Perhaps
>>some people don't want to write compilers that do that (i.e. they are too
>>lazy), but it most certainly CAN be evaluated.
>>
>>Perhaps a different explanation is appropriate?
>
>You want to link the whole floating point library to the C compiler?
>
>First thing you need to realize is that there is no special, pre-defined
>function sqrt() in C.  (Suprise!!!)  The function sqrt lives in a link
>libarary.  As far as the C compiler knows, it's just another user-defined
>function.  So it can't really be evaluated at compile time.
>
The MSC compiler "knows" strcpy(), memcpy(), etc... The compiler produces
inline versions of these functions. Compile guru's will do almost anything
for speed.

-- 
Phil Lindsay - "Patents threaten future technology"
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