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From: g-rh@cca.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c,net.micro.pc,net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Varargs, portability
Message-ID: <8049@cca.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-May-86 00:06:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: cca.8049
Posted: Sun May 25 00:06:50 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Jun-86 23:58:15 EDT
References: <916@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Reply-To: g-rh@cca.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Organization: Computer Corp. of America, Cambridge
Lines: 25
Xref: linus net.lang.c:8484 net.micro.pc:8101 net.unix-wizards:15194
Summary: 'Broken' compilers and operating systems

In article <> ark@alice.UucP (Andrew Koenig) writes:
>>>Is the following program portable to any machine which provides a
>>>(reasonable) implementation of C.
>>> ...
>>>	joe( 1,2.5,3,4.5,5,6.5,7,8.5,9,10.5,11,12.5,13,14.5,15, 16.5, 17, 
>>>18.5, 19,20.5,21,22.5,23,24.5,25,26.5,27,28.5,29,30.5,31,32.5,33,34.5,35,36.5,
>>>37,38.5,39,40.5,41,42.5,43,44.5,45,46.5,47,48.5,49,50.5,51,52.5) ;
>>
>>No, because you have exceeded the VAX's 255-byte argument limit.
>
>Putting it another way: some compilers may be broken.
>
>It is the compiler's job to shield users from silly restrictions
>in the hardware.  Of course, some compilers fall down on the job.


This is, of course, not a hardware restriction but instead is a
software implementation restriction.  More importantly, by this kind
of reasoning, almost every C compiler and almost every implementation
of Unix is "broken".  Any time you code system software with hard
table sizes you are creating "broken" software which fails in one
way or another when the table size limits (all too often hidden
from the user) are exceeded.

		Richard Harter, SMDS Inc.