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From: neitzel@infbs.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: generics for 'C' - (nf)
Message-ID: <19000001@infbs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Jun-87 09:22:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: infbs.19000001
Posted: Tue Jun 30 09:22:00 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 3-Jul-87 05:12:32 EDT
Lines: 49
Nf-ID: #N:infbs:19000001:000:1377
Nf-From: infbs!neitzel    Jun 30 14:22:00 1987

How would you implement generic functions/data types in C ?

Has someone already written some helpful packages going in
such a direction ?

					Martin Neitzel
					...!mcvax!unido!infbs!neitzel

/**** Skip the rest, if you aren't interested in this topic ****/



I mean something to the effect of:

#include "generic_stack.h"

#define  STACKTYPE StackOfFoobar
#define  STACK_ELEMTYPE struct foobar *

generic_fn_create_stack ( new_foobar_stack )
generic_fn_pop (pop_one_foobar)
...

main()
{
	StackOfFoobar first_stack;

	first_stack = new_foobar_stack();
	...


I for one have a such a model working, it even supports conditional
generation of "foo_stack.h" vs. "foo_stack.c".  The aim of this note
is to stir up some discussion about such concepts.  Sorry, if this
repeats older stuff...


I think ADA's (ok ok...: (tm)DoD) GENERICS are not too difficult
to imitate. Maybe you can only achieve a subset of all its facilities,
but that wouldn't hurt too much.

I know that standard UNIX (yet another (tm)) tools like "m4", "sed"
and "awk" would fit better to this task, but please TRY at least
one approach with the mere C-preprocessor.  However, any contributions
are welcome.

Last not least: I'm interested in generics generating "source level
code", that is (quite) strongly typed. In other words, I don't
mean "general" library routines like "malloc()" or "tsearch()".