Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!dik
From: dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Efficient coding considered harmful?
Message-ID: <7731@boring.cwi.nl>
Date: 25 Nov 88 01:36:43 GMT
References: <3105@hubcap.UUCP> <34112@XAIT.XEROX.COM> <1700@dataio.Data-IO.COM> <7700@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <771@wsccs.UUCP> <437@auspex.UU <592@tuck.nott-cs.UUCP> <503@auspex.UUCP>
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 33


 > >	Of course, the real solution to the "varargs" problem, not possible
 > >in C because of the dead hand of history, is to use extra brackets, so that
 > >every function has a fixed number of arguments:
 > >
 > >		printf ("%d %c %s\n", (i, c, "hello world"));
 > >			^...arg1...^, ^.......arg2........^
 > >
 > >	Now, what language did I see that nifty idea in? [:-)]

(For those who do not know, Algol 68)
 > 
 > OK, so what is the data type of
 > 
 > 	(i, c, "hello world")
 > 
 > Just adding extra brackets wouldn't have been sufficient; it leaves
 > questions such as that one....

It is an 'array display', i.e. the second parameter is an array whose
components are a union of a lot of things.  The extra brackets are
required as there is (in Algol 68) a difference between:
	print(a, b, c)
and
	print((a, b, c))
the first calls print with three parameters (which is illegal),
the second with only one.


-- 
dik t. winter, cwi, amsterdam, nederland
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