Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!ames!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Problems with GCC and/or VAX LINK
Message-ID: <9867@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 18 Mar 89 00:59:12 GMT
References: <18426@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <1732@levels.sait.edu.au> <9861@smoke.BRL.MIL> <kY89tBy00hYPNFGX1Q@cs.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 14

In article <kY89tBy00hYPNFGX1Q@cs.cmu.edu> rpd@cs.cmu.edu (Richard Draves) writes:
>First, I'd like to know if a #if in one file can be matched by a #else or #endif
>in another file.

The preprocessing grammar implies not.  As I recall the debate on this,
generally it was felt that any possible use of such behavior would be
outweighed by the much greater chance of it contributing to mysterious
bugs.  The grammar is also much simpler this way.

>Second, I'd like to know if when one is skipping over tokens looking for a #else
>or #endif, one is entitled to skip #include directives without substituting the
>file.

Not only is one entitled to, one is required to.