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From: gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn <gwyn>)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: C needs BCD (ANSI People: Please Listen)
Message-ID: <5428@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 22-Oct-84 17:38:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.5428
Posted: Mon Oct 22 17:38:10 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Oct-84 06:13:46 EDT
References: <218@x.UUCP> <5419@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 17

> The mode for adding random extensions to the languages that are of
> interest to a small number of implementations or machines is to make
> them look like functions.  This is OK, even if they aren't implemented
> as functions.  I.e.
> 
> 	a = bcdadd(b, 10);
> 
> Could produce equally good code as
> 	a = b bcdaddopt 10;
> 
> If bcdadd was recognized by the compiler/loader and switched to inline
> code.  We do exactly that for the memory synchronization primitives on
> the HEP C compiler.  It allows new things to be added without breaking
> the syntax of the language.

Quite right!  Same as the reason for not having string operators
built into the language.