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From: jimm@amiga.UUCP (James D. Mackraz)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: beta 4
Message-ID: <1478@amiga.amiga.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 7-Aug-86 15:53:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: amiga.1478
Posted: Thu Aug  7 15:53:17 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Aug-86 06:14:39 EDT
References: <661@usc-oberon.UUCP> <1468@amiga.amiga.UUCP> <870@tekigm.UUCP>
Reply-To: jimm@homer.UUCP (Jim Mackraz)
Distribution: net
Organization: Commodore-Amiga Inc., 983 University Ave #D, Los Gatos CA 95030
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In article <870@tekigm.UUCP> phils@tekigm.UUCP (Phil Staub) writes:
>In article <1468@amiga.amiga.UUCP> neil@rocky.UUCP (Neil Katin) writes:
>>
>>HOWEVER, your code needs to be fully reentrant to live on this list.
>>Neither lattice C nor emacs are reentrant.  It turns out that all BCPL
>>programs are.  C programs can be written so that they are reentrant,
>>but they typically are not.
>>
>
>Question:
>
>I am interested to know what it is about the lattice C compiler that
>generates non-reentrant code. I am not familiar with this compiler,
>but (at least according to my understanding) any code which does not utilize
>static or extern variables (i.e., only uses automatics or registers) should
>be re-entrant in C. I also know that with some compilers, functions which
>return structures do so in a non-reentrant way. Are these the only
>non-reentrancies to which you refer, or is there a gap in my understanding
>about reentrancy, or is there something else about Lattice which is
>non-reentrant.
>
>Thanks

Since I read Neil's posting the same way you did, I'll make the clarification.

1) The Lattice C Compiler is not itself a re-entrant program.  The reason
 this bears mentioning is that having a resident compiler was our in-house
 motivation for resident programs (it is a large program that is loaded
 again and again in a typical development session).

2) Perhaps the Lattice C Compiler can create re-entrant code.  Indeed some
 compilers create non-reentrant code, when returning structures, for example.
 Greenhills does this, and I almost set myself up for the most insidious
 of bugs in Intuition by not respecting this.  I do not know what things
 to watch out for with Lattice.  Another area of concern would be the
 startup code (and other linked libraries) which might contain statics.
 I can't see a way to be sure of this stuff without consulting Lattice.

Go Wild.
		jimm	Amiga/Commodore