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From: ALMQUIST@SU-SCORE.ARPA (Philip Almquist)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: C standard for initializations
Message-ID: <5@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 18-Jul-85 20:40:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.5
Posted: Thu Jul 18 20:40:48 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jul-85 05:25:06 EDT
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
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	An alternative which would accomplish the end would be to
add a repetition construct to the preprocessor.  An example, using
one possible syntax, is:

	int foobar[FOOSIZE] = {
		1,
		2,
		3
	#     repeat FOOSIZE - 3
		,27
	#     endrepeat
		}

I believe that such a preprocessor directive would have the following
advantages over the (very reasonable) scheme that you proposed:

 - It also handles repetition in other cases where it can be useful,
   such as loop unrolling.

 - Macro processors tend to be easier to change than compilers.

 - Although I didn't think about it hard enough to be sure, I think
   that there are cases in your syntax where the accidental insertion
   or deletion of a comma could change the meaning of the initializer
   radically without causing any sort of compile-time error.  Since
   commas naturally abound in initializers such an error might be
   hard to spot.  Although such pitfalls abound in C it would be
   nice to avoid adding another one.

					Philip Almquist
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