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From: tainter@ihlpg.ATT.COM (Tainter)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: typeof(), like sizeof() (Was: Question on structures)
Message-ID: <4230@ihlpg.ATT.COM>
Date: Tue, 10-Nov-87 11:22:13 EST
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.4230
Posted: Tue Nov 10 11:22:13 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Nov-87 05:37:58 EST
References: <1025@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <3022@bunker.UUCP> <150@fxgrp.UUCP> <3025@bobkat.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 18
Keywords: life, macros, and everything

In article <3025@bobkat.UUCP>, m5@bobkat.UUCP (Mike McNally ) writes:
> On a related but completely different topic:  does anybody else think that
> a "typeof(thing)" would be useful?  Seems like it would make a lot of macros
should be typeof(thingy) :-)
> easier and cleaner.  What are the philosophical issues behind extending
> (or the reluctance to extend) the preprocessor?  Would more powerful macro
> capabilities actually introduce a new world of obscurity to the language?

In case people get the wronge idead from this posting:
    typeof() is not a prepocessor implementable routine
There is however a serious risk in these macros.  There is no way to insure
those local variables do not clash with names in the parameters.
This makes typeof() of questional value, since it would encourage this risky
coding style.

> Mike McNally, mercifully employed at Digital Lynx ---

--j.a.tainter