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From: hugh@hcrvax.UUCP (Hugh Redelmeier)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: casts and puns (and digressions...)
Message-ID: <1486@hcrvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Nov-84 13:27:54 EST
Article-I.D.: hcrvax.1486
Posted: Tue Nov 13 13:27:54 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Nov-84 02:25:38 EST
References: <110@ISM780B.UUCP> <940@opus.UUCP>
Organization: Human Computing Resources, Toronto
Lines: 13

> > >Also, Pascal, which is doubtlessly a strongly typed language, does
> > >permit a type definition like 'type ref= ^ref;' and handles it
> > >correctly...

> Perhaps true, but marginally relevant to reality, since the only value
> assignable to an object of type ref is NIL.

This turns out not to be the case.  Type ref is a suitable representation
for integers.  If you remember Peano, here are some implementations:

constant zero = nil;
function successor(n: ref): ref; begin new(successor); successor^ := n end;
function predecessor(n: ref): ref; begin predecessor := n^ end