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From: rwa@auvax.UUCP (Ross Alexander)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: goto's and switch statements -- mild proposal
Message-ID: <302@auvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Aug-87 14:29:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: auvax.302
Posted: Wed Aug 19 14:29:37 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Aug-87 05:58:42 EDT
References: <855@tjalk.cs.vu.nl> <2683@hoptoad.uucp> <916@haddock.ISC.COM> <6289@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Organization: Athabasca U., Alberta, Canada
Lines: 25
Summary: let's not throw the baby our with the bathwater

In article <6289@brl-smoke.ARPA>, gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) writes:
> In article <10265@orchid.waterloo.edu> rbutterworth@orchid.waterloo.edu (Ray Butterworth) writes:
> >    case 'a' :: 'z' :
> 
> There's another serious problem underlying all these suggestions;
> namely, that "a through z" has a well-defined meaning.

Yes, and in my original article suggesting range cases as a possible extension
I pointed this problem out.  I view this as a problem with the environment
not the language.  For the sake of arguement, say I had a huge enum; I might
want to say

	case REDDISH_ORANGE :: SORT_OF_GREENISH :
		foo( bar );
		break;

Now where has your problem gone?  Since the enum is defined in the text,
the semantics of the range case are fully defined _in the text_, and we
are back to debating whether this is a good idea purely on it's own merits.
Or, to phrase it a bit differently, dragging character set (mis)
representations into the discussion is a bit of a red herring.

Remember, folks, I'm :-)'ing.  Flames to /dev/null, _content_ to the net.

...!ihnp4!alberta!auvax!rwa		Ross Alexander @ Athabasca University