Path: utzoo!dptcdc!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!cmcl2!phri!cooper!dasys1!aj-mberg
From: aj-mberg@dasys1.UUCP (Micha Berger)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Language Design, or: is C's Grammar Context Free
Summary: Functios
Keywords: BNF, Grammars, Silliness
Message-ID: <9382@dasys1.UUCP>
Date: 18 Apr 89 14:51:39 GMT
References: <5200040@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <12443@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <10162@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET>
Organization: The Big Electric Cat
Lines: 43

In article <10162@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET>, diamond@diamond.csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond) writes:
> In article <9313@dasys1.UUCP> aj-mberg@dasys1.UUCP (Micha Berger) writes:
> >> Consider the following in C, however:
> >
> >>	. . . { T (x); . . . }
> > 
> >> How should the construct be parsed?
> >
> >It would have to be an expression, since anything within brackets ain't a
> >decleration. This isn't Pascal kiddees, all functions are global.
> 
> Anything within brackets is a declaration until the end of
> the declarations, and then statements (expressions) until the closing
> bracket.  This isn't Pascal kiddee; intuition and aesthetics are not
> welcome here.

Well the sataement cannot be a decleration for x, since x is in
parenthasis. It cannot be a decleration for T (using ANSI's new format),
since it has no type.
	My point was about something else. I felt people were trying to force
the statement to read along the same lines as:

	main() {
		int T(x)
		int x;
		{
		};
		.
		.
		.
	}

and that's what I meant about being allowed in Pascal and not in C.

(BTW I've been using C as my primary language since 1978 not because
C is superior as a language, just that it gives me more power to optimize
my code. If I got a Pascal with a good enough optimizer, I'd switch
back. I like C's speed, not the language itself.)
-- 
					Micha Berger				     
Disclaimer: All opinions expressed here are my own. The spelling, noone's.
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