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From: zben@umd5.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: C Builtin Funxions
Message-ID: <922@umd5.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 19-Apr-86 14:55:00 EST
Article-I.D.: umd5.922
Posted: Sat Apr 19 14:55:00 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 23-Apr-86 12:28:57 EST
References: <99@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Reply-To: zben@umd5.UUCP (Ben Cranston)
Organization: U of Md, CSC, College Park, Md
Lines: 26
Summary: Why not change the funxion [sic] names...
Salutation: Hiya Jim!

>>> Some of us know what we're doing. One sees lots of redefinitions of
>>> things like `putc' in {VM,}UNIX code. It is often desirable to use
>>> high level funxions (printf) while hacking up a lower level one.
	
>> Of course, you realize redefining putc will have no effect on printf...

> I could redefine printf to remove all that floating point stuff I
> don't want or need, and maybe add a few formats of my own (You hear
> a faint cry of anguish (about portability) in the background).
> THEN, I am free to redefine putc, perhaps to print unprintable
> chars as ^X for control X, etc. In fact I did this to `more'.

At first blush one might think this a very lazy thing to do.  Pity the poor
dude who gets this program after you leave - and has to deal with one of
the inter-library-routine calling sequences subtly shifting in 4.7 BSD*.

If you're going to redefine the world, what's wrong with 1,$s/putc/myputc/g
and 1,$s/printf/myprintf/g and be done with it - then the fact that you
have hacked things up is "manifestly obvious".

*This is an out-of-the-hat example - do *NOT* write me asking for distapes.

-- 
"We're taught to cherish what we have   |          Ben Cranston
 by what we have no longer..."          |          zben@umd2.umd.edu
                          ...{seismo!umcp-cs,ihnp4!rlgvax}!cvl!umd5!zben