Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: comma at end of enumerator-list
Message-ID: <1991Jul1.021833.25079@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1991 02:18:33 GMT
References: <10756@labtam.labtam.oz.au>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <10756@labtam.labtam.oz.au> timr@labtam.labtam.oz.au (Tim Roper) writes:
>	(a) a trailing comma at the end of an enumerator-list is not allowed,
>...  Does anyone know if (a) was considered an issue by X3J11
>and whether it is mentioned somewhere in the Rationale?

It does not appear to be mentioned.  If memory (of a secondhand report)
serves, the issue was raised but lack of implementation experience weighed
against it, as did dislike for unnecessary complexity in a feature that was
considered only barely worth including in the standard at all.

(You wouldn't know it from the way some people rant about X3J11's "changes"
to the language, but nearly everything in ANSI C existed in at least one
production C compiler already, and X3J11 almost always rejected ideas that
were not backed by implementation experience.)
-- 
Lightweight protocols?  TCP/IP *is*     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
lightweight already; just look at OSI.  |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry