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From: bzs@bu-cs.bu.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Motivation behind a particular piece of code in cpp
Message-ID: <10536@brl-adm.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 25-Nov-87 11:08:31 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-adm.10536
Posted: Wed Nov 25 11:08:31 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Nov-87 18:51:43 EST
Sender: news@brl-adm.ARPA
Lines: 23


>   I do not understand the motivation behind a following declaration
>   found in the sources of cpp.
>
>     #define STATIC
>
>     Then there are various declartions of the sort
>     STATIC char ch.
>
>    If STATIC is defined to be null, why would one use it in declarations ?
>
>                                         ..Uday---- 

Obviously so it could be redefined differently and re-compiled (eg. static).

Just a guess but I know that CPP/PCC running on the IBM370 runs into
various problems with arrays due to the 12-bit segment addressing
limits, large automatics will raise this ire, statics help though
oftentimes all you can do is malloc() the thing so you get code
generated which uses hard addresses rather than compiler generated
base/displacements.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University