Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!psuvax1!burdvax!sdcrdcf!ism780c!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: ANSI C idea: structure literals
Message-ID: <2930@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: 13 Mar 88 20:52:41 GMT
References: <2743@mmintl.UUCP> <2550058@hpisod2.HP.COM> <8803091705.AA09183@explorer.dgp.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 19

In article <8803091705.AA09183@explorer.dgp.toronto.edu> flaps@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) writes:
>I think it's clear that a new syntax, such as Karl Heuer's, is required.
>I would prefer a symbol rather than a keyword, but that's just me.

I'd prefer a less verbose syntax, too, but I can't think of anything that
isn't arbitrary and doesn't overload an existing syntax.

>(But: how about any of backquote, dollar, at (@), or right square bracket?
>Perhaps unary comma?  Perhaps if the `&' is immediately followed by an
>opening brace?)

Void the first three; I don't think we should add to the character set for
something this simple.  Unbalanced brackets would be a big headache (and
possibly an ambiguity; I wouldn't want to bet that this construct can never
appear inside brackets).  With unary comma, or ampersand-brace, where are you
going to put the type information?  And in the latter case, if you want the
aggregate itself rather than a pointer would you have to write `*&{...}`?

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint