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From: alan@allegra.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: I/O operations in programming languages
Message-ID: <1796@allegra.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Aug-83 12:54:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: allegra.1796
Posted: Tue Aug 30 12:54:33 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Aug-83 22:03:37 EDT
References: <666@mit-eddie.UUCP>, <110@csd1.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 33


	All facetiousness aside, would somebody please show me where
	my reasoning has gone astray here?  My best guess as to why
	people 	say that C has no I/O is that all its I/O is performed
	with function calls, but I can't see how there being no separate
	syntax for the I/O constructs matters one hill of beans.  We
	certainly don't say that FORTRAN has addition but does not have
	the absolute value operation simply because the latter is a
	function call while the former uses infix notation; or do we?  


In Fortran, the absolute value function is part of the definition of the
language.  It is a built-in function.  If your Fortran compiler does not
supply it, then it's not a correct and complete compiler.  So it's fair
to say that Fortran has an absolute value operation.

In C, on the other hand, no I/O operations exist in the definition of the
language.  From "The C Programming Language" by K & R:


	Finally, C itself provides no input-output facilities: there
	are no READ or WRITE statements, and no wired-in file access
	methods.


So, your C library (not your C compiler) may include "printf", but it
doesn't have to.  With or without "printf", it's still C.

Do you now understand why people say C has no I/O?


	Alan Driscoll
	Bell Labs, Murray Hill