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From: rkitts@netcom.COM (Rick Kitts)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A change to the C++ standard
Message-ID: <1991Apr6.181330.12144@netcom.COM>
Date: 6 Apr 91 18:13:30 GMT
References: <2264@winnie.fit.edu>
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  UNIX System {408 241-9760 guest}
Lines: 26

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.
> [...]

What type of scanner do you plan to build? I assume that you will be using
a greedy algorithm, meaning that it will be a simple thing to check first
that the constant starts with a 0 and that it does or does not contain
a decimal point. I think that you might wish to re-examine your scanner 
design if this is in fact a real problem.

>Well --> What do you think, should I change it or keep it the same ?

Not using octal constants myself I really don't care very much. But I must
tell you that a compiler would have to generate outrageously efficient code
for me to purchase it if it did not conform to the standard.