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From: diamond@jit533.swstokyo.dec.com (Norman Diamond)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re: gcc and NULL function pointers.
Message-ID: <1991Jul1.010617.14504@tkou02.enet.dec.com>
Date: 1 Jul 91 01:06:17 GMT
References: <1991Jun27.001642.10658@tkou02.enet.dec.com> <20969@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <678149027.20102@mindcraft.com> <16583@smoke.brl.mil>
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Reply-To: diamond@jit533.enet@tkou02.enet.dec.com (Norman Diamond)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Japan , Tokyo
Lines: 26

In article <16583@smoke.brl.mil> gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>In article <678149027.20102@mindcraft.com> karish@mindcraft.com (Chuck Karish) writes:
>>Is there a restriction that would prevent the implementation
>>from producing a diagnostic for (1)?
>Literally speaking, an implementation can generate spurious diagnostics
>if it wishes.
Yes, almost well-known by now.

>However, there is supposed to be a well-defined notion of
>"accepting" a strictly conforming program,
Yes, the correct output, determined by the program, must be produced.

>and such a diagnostic if it is indeed generated should be syntactically
>distinguishable from a real diagnostic
This is a different issue, and "should" is a weasel-word.
For quality of implementation, I think everyone would agree that such
diagnostics should be syntactically distinguishable and should serve some
useful purpose etc. etc.  However, the standard does not require it.

>Why would they generate diagnostics for perfectly fine code?
The standard doesn't demand an answer to this question.  Even though we dislike
low-quality implementations, this question is irrelevant (for this newsgroup).
--
Norman Diamond       diamond@tkov50.enet.dec.com
If this were the company's opinion, I wouldn't be allowed to post it.
Permission is granted to feel this signature, but not to look at it.