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From: bright@dataio.Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: MAJOR ANSI C WART (my opinion, of course)
Message-ID: <1386@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Date: Thu, 15-Oct-87 13:50:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: dataio.1386
Posted: Thu Oct 15 13:50:21 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Oct-87 09:00:55 EDT
References: <1298@wyszecki.munsell.UUCP>
Reply-To: bright@dataio.UUCP (Walter Bright)
Organization: Data I/O Corporation; Redmond, WA
Lines: 28

In article <1298@wyszecki.munsell.UUCP> jwf@munsell.UUCP (Jim Franklin) writes:
>The proposed ANSI C limit of 6 characters on external symbols is
>completely bogus.
>The "justification" given for the limit is that ANSI C needs to be
>supported by many vendors in order for it to succeed as a standard, and
>there exists a variety of obsolete compilers and linkers that will only
>support 6 character externals.

Compiler vendors have to do a lot of work to convert K+R compilers into
ANSI C compilers. Since they will have to do this work anyway, what's the
big deal about fixing the linker so it will handle 32 character names?
I don't understand the problem that the vendors have. If the vendors don't
have control over the linker, they can write their own. I know from
experience: for Datalight C, I was finally forced to provide my own linker
because of various problems with the Microsoft linker. It turned out to
be much easier than I expected, and most of the other compiler vendors
have done the same thing.

As for interim solutions, a vendor can say that they are fully ANSI
compatible, except they only have 6 char externals. Having to say this
will cause customer pressure on them to fix their software.

As for my projects (which run on PC's to Vaxes to 68000s to 32032s), I
assume 31 char limits, and have not run into a problem. PDP-11s are
dead for serious development anyway.

Assume 31 char limits, and refuse to port your software to a machine if
it only has 6 char limits. Take a stand!