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From: cs326ag@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Loren J. Rittle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A change to the C++ standard
Message-ID: <1991Apr5.212512.27615@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 5 Apr 91 21:25:12 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Lines: 42

In article <2264@winnie.fit.edu> rcs91900@zach.fit.edu ( Charles Stockman /ADVISOR-Clutterham) writes:
>I am writing a C++ compiler and have one quick question
>
>In C/C++ Octal is defined as 
>
>      012 (octal) --> 10 (decimal)
>
>Instead of starting octals off with a 0 I am planning to start them of with
>0o 
>   
>      0o12 (octal) --> 10 (decimal)
>
>The reason is that I want to make it easier to build the scanner.  By using
>0o all I would have to do is check for 0o and surely know if it was an
>octal or not.  In the Ansi standard either an octal or a floating digit 
>may start with a 0 so it would take longer to decide if it was an octal or
>floating point and the code would not be as clean.

Unless you are designing an ad hoc scanner (i.e. you aren't using
Lex and Yacc/Bison), the above is not true.  If you *are* designing
an ad hoc scanner, then I say you're crazy :-).

Even if you are designing an ad hac scanner (you're still crazy),
if it starts with 0[^.] then you know it is octal.  Scanning for
0[^.] should be of the same complexity as scanning for 0o.

In any event, I would not deviate from the standard...  Put it is
your project and you can take any short cuts you want...

>        045 --> octal
>        0.3 --> floating point
>
>Well --> What do you think, should I change it or keep it the same ?

In sum, keep it the same.

Loren J. Rittle
-- 
``NewTek stated that the Toaster  *would*  *not*  be made to directly support
  the Mac, at this point Sculley stormed out of the booth...'' --- A scene at
  the recent MacExpo.  Gee, you wouldn't think that an Apple Exec would be so
  worried about one little Amiga device... Loren J. Rittle  l-rittle@uiuc.edu