Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!topaz!husc6!seismo!mcvax!guido From: guido@mcvax.uucp (Guido van Rossum) Newsgroups: net.lang.c Subject: Re: #if foo vs #if defined(foo) Message-ID: <6994@boring.mcvax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 29-Jun-86 14:06:30 EDT Article-I.D.: boring.6994 Posted: Sun Jun 29 14:06:30 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 11-Jul-86 04:57:47 EDT References: <1586@brl-smoke.ARPA> <379@twitch.UUCP> <1063@watmath.UUCP> Reply-To: guido@boring.uucp (Guido van Rossum) Organization: "Stamp Out BASIC" Committee, CWI, Amsterdam Lines: 10 Apparently-To: rnews@mcvax In article <1063@watmath.UUCP> rbutterworth@watmath.UUCP writes: >A CPP which silently takes undefined symbols to be 0 can be quite >dangerous. [lengthy example deleted] While I agree with your reasoning (the example was quite amazing!), the ANSI C standard declares that undefined identifiers must be made 0. Probably too many people have used this feature so they can't break that existing code :-( Guido van Rossum, CWI, Amsterdam