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From: andrew@hwcs.UUCP (Andrew Stewart)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: C subscripts
Message-ID: <245@hwcs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Nov-84 06:10:07 EST
Article-I.D.: hwcs.245
Posted: Thu Nov  1 06:10:07 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Nov-84 08:02:33 EST
References: <195@mouton.UUCP>
Organization: Computer Sci., Heriot-Watt U., Scotland
Lines: 48

>I am talking about C's arcane subscripting syntax.
>Who else out there thinks that
>	some_array_name[more][long][names]
>is actually a good way to do things?

I'm sorry, but I do.

>Just as we need nested comments, because after all other "great languages"
>do, I propose that C support "normal" subscripting.
>
>Mathematicians have been around longer than C; Fortran too;
>so, in the name of compatability, which is what the ANSI standard
>is all about anyway, the compiler SHOULD accept 
>	some_array_name[more,long,names]

Ah! We follow the hallowed traditions of F*rtr*n... I see.
I have a minor objection, though -
if you consider an array to be a vector of vectors (of vectors, etc, etc)
then the C method is reasonable. The "normal" method treats the array as
a homogeneous mass, rather than a hierarchical structure.

>Of course the older, hopefully obsolescent, method will be supported,
>but it should be discouraged.

I would prefer to see the C method adopted by other languages.

>Now, BEFROE the flames start I KNOW the comma operator exists.
>This is not overloading because subscripts are expressions, not statements.
>So don't start quoting K&R pg 192 to me.

Ahem - the expression
	array_name[more,long,names]

will evaluate the expression 'more', then the expression 'long' and then use the
expression 'names' as the subscript value.
It *is* a sequence of comma-operator expressions.
Not a readable facility, but (like so many gruesomes in C) when you need it,
you *need* it.

-- 
----------------------------------
"Not a bug, a feature! It's documented, dash it!"

Andrew Stewart, Dept. of Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University,
		Edinburgh,
		Scotland.

		..!ukc!edcaad!hwcs!andrew