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Path: utzoo!utcsri!greg
From: greg@utcsri.UUCP (Gregory Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Why are typedef names in the same name space as variable names?
Message-ID: <3692@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Nov-86 14:23:18 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsri.3692
Posted: Wed Nov 26 14:23:18 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Nov-86 17:27:50 EST
References: <1092@spice.cs.cmu.edu> <307@cartan.Berkeley.EDU> <3644@utcsri.UUCP> <4647@ism780c.UUCP>
Reply-To: greg@utcsri.UUCP (Gregory Smith)
Distribution: net
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 40
Summary: 

In article <4647@ism780c.UUCP> tim@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith) writes:
>There is already a problem with telling when the declarations end.
>Consider this program:
>
>	main() {
>		a;      /* declare an integer variable */
>		a = 1;  /* put something in it */
>	}
>
>Every C compiler I have tried complains about an undeclared variable on
>line 2.  If "a" is a global, they have no problem:
>
>	a;
>	main() {
>		a = 1;
>	}
In the first example, line 2, 'a;' is a statement, to wit, the
expression 'a'.  It is an error only because there is no 'a' in scope.
Declarations inside blocks must specify a type or a storage class.  I
am not saying that this is perfectly consistent; however it is
thoroughly documented. In fact any C compiler that doesn't complain
about the first example must be broken in a nasty way.  Given this
rule, there is no ambiguity in determining whether a thing in a block
is another declaration or the first statement. If it starts with a
type/storage-class specifier keyword, it is a declaration. If it starts
with a currently defined typedef identifier, it is also a declaration.
Anything else is either a statement or a syntax error.

Do you expect to be able to declare the external function foobar
as below?

func(){
	foobar();		/* declare ext. function foobar */
	foobar();		/* call it */
}

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Smith     University of Toronto      UUCP: ..utzoo!utcsri!greg
Have vAX, will hack...