Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rutgers!ames!amdcad!sun!gorodish!guy
From: guy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: weird c code/ c test
Message-ID: <25693@sun.uucp>
Date: Fri, 14-Aug-87 18:46:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.25693
Posted: Fri Aug 14 18:46:58 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Aug-87 07:09:23 EDT
References: <1089@gilsys.UUCP> <175400004@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Lines: 26

> printf predates stdio.  true, the semantics have changed a bit since
> the advent of stdio (previously, we didn't need sprintf and fprintf;
> printf did it all!), and a discussion of stdio would be incomplete
> without covering printf, but including stdio.h solely for printf is
> a bit paranoid.  next, you'll want me to #include <time.h> when i use
> ctime().

Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I do.

One hopes that with the advent of ANSI C, system include files will include
full prototype declarations of the functions in the package to which that
include file belongs.  (Unfortunately, in general there isn't a simple match
between packages and include files, but in some cases there is.)  Function
prototypes (assuming the compiler does the Right Thing with conversions such as
conversions between pointer and integral types and between different pointer
types, namely printing a warning or error) can cause some errors that now are
mechanically caught only by running "lint" to be caught when compiling.  This
is a Good Thing.

Even *without* full prototypes, including <time.h> when you use "ctime" will at
least fetch the declaration of "ctime", so if you forget to declare it as
returning "char *" your code will still be correct (and work on machines where
pointers and "int"s are not the same size).
	Guy Harris
	{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!guy
	guy@sun.com