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From: ljz@fxgrp.UUCP (Lloyd Zusman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Complex type ?
Message-ID: <126@fxgrp.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 18-Oct-87 21:41:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: fxgrp.126
Posted: Sun Oct 18 21:41:56 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Oct-87 01:12:00 EDT
References: <7264@brl-adm.ARPA> <1015@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: ljz@fxgrp.UUCP (Lloyd Zusman)
Organization: FX Development Group, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 45
Summary: How 'bout C++?

In article <1015@cup.portal.com> Richard_s_Stoneston@cup.portal.com writes:
>Well, here's my two cents regarding the future use of type complex in C.
> ...
>C, on the other hand, can define types very easily through typedef and struct
>and enum.
> ...
>You don't have to require that the complex definition, as an example, need to
>be inside the parser.

I agree.  But this question and many other questions of its ilk that come
up here can be answered as follows:

     You should try C++

Some of us tend to argue ad infinitum (and perhaps even ad nauseum) as
to which non-traditional C features can be added to C in some future
release.  C++ was developed (at least in part) to address some of
these issues.  For example, in C++, a new data type called "complex"
can be defined as, say, a structure consisting of two floats.  A
series of functions to operate on this 'complex' type can be defined,
and these can be mapped into existing C operators.  You can, for
example, define the operators "+", "-", "*", and "/" to call your
complex functions if any of the the operands have been defined as
complex.  This can be generalized to any new data type.

C++ has several other nice features such as inline functions (which
can be used to supplant #define macros in many cases),
call-by-reference (which in many cases eliminates the need to remember
whether to prepend a '&' to a parameter in function call and a '*'
when referring to the parameter within the function), variable
declaration anywhere in a block before it is referred to, data hiding,
and object-oriented constructs.  Some of people who want to add
features to C might find themselves quite satisfied with what already
exists in C++.

C++ is very similar to C and you will not lose very many existing C
features by using it.  The C++ bible is a book called "The C++
Programming Language" by Bjarne Stroustrup and published by
Addison-Welsey.  Why not check it out?


-- 

Lloyd Zusman
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