Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!ncar!tank!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: trigraphs (was Why are character arrays special)
Message-ID: <15941@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 14 Feb 89 14:15:52 GMT
References: <19742@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <225800126@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> <1875@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 26

In article <1875@dataio.Data-IO.COM> bright@Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright) writes:
>It's irritating to have to implement a feature that nobody in their right
>mind is going to use, and that has such a negative impact on the product.

Indeed (he says, wincing at the mangerial misuse of the word `impact').
My suggestion is to provide two separate versions of the compiler, one
that completely ignores trigraphs, and one that optionally scans them.
The installation sequence, then, might go like this:

	This package comes with two versions of the compiler.
	The fast one does not implement trigraphs, and is therefore
	not an ANSI C compiler.  The slow one does implement trigraphs.
	If you want to use trigraphs, install the slow compiler,
	otherwise use the fast compiler.  See Appendix A if you
	decide you want to switch.

	Do you want to have trigraphs available?

If the user answers `yes', the next prompt is:

	Why?

:-)
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris