Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!oddjob!hao!ames!nrl-cmf!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: generic pointers without ANSI C
Message-ID: <7330@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 24 Feb 88 13:49:17 GMT
References: <43@vsi.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 15
Keywords: ANSI C, generic pointers, void *

In article <43@vsi.UUCP> friedl@vsi.UUCP (Stephen J. Friedl) writes:
>        #define generic char

Given the current state of C implementations, you probably have some
sort of system-dependent configuration header that you #include in
your applications (mine is called <std.h>).  You can use such a
header to provide system-independent types; for example mine has
	typedef char *pointer;	/* void * if you have it */
Then your application need not be modified during porting, just the
system-dependent configuration header.

This can obviously be carried to an extreme; you should use it mainly
for those things that cannot be done portably in this pre-ANSI C era.
(Mine also introduces a "bool" data type, which supports my style of
coding, but that's not a portability issue.)