Xref: utzoo comp.arch:3740 comp.lang.c:7763
Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!daveb
From: daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: RISC is a nasty no-no!
Summary: Actually about array representation...
Message-ID: <2375@geac.UUCP>
Date: 3 Mar 88 13:42:43 GMT
Article-I.D.: geac.2375
Posted: Thu Mar  3 08:42:43 1988
References: <179@wsccs.UUCP: <696@nuchat.UUCP: <284@scdpyr.UUCP> <25699@linus.UUCP> <11199@duke.cs.duke.edu> <25723@linus.UUCP> <8332@eddie.MIT.EDU> <4400@aw.sei.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Followup-To: comp.lang.c
Organization: The Geac Indirection Department.
Lines: 22

In article <4400@aw.sei.cmu.edu> firth@bd.sei.cmu.edu.UUCP (Robert Firth) writes:
[discussion about array representation, and the hardware support
appropriate to multiplicative addressing]

>However, my reading of ANSI X3.9-1978, especially Section 5, on arrays,
>leads me to conclude that array representation in column-major form,
>and array access by chain multiplication-&-addition of subscripts, is
>the only feasible implementation choice.

  My reading of the ANSI proposal leads me to the same conclusion.
This is both good (it eliminates an ambiguity) and bad (it removes
the freedom of an compiler-writer to do what is best applicable to
her architecture).
  Could someone who is more of a language-lawyer comment on this
interpretation?  Was it in fact the intention of the committee?

--dave (redirected to comp.lang.c) c-b
-- 
 David Collier-Brown.                 {mnetor yunexus utgpu}!geac!daveb
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