Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!eutrc3!wzv!wietse
From: wietse@wzv.UUCP (Wietse Z. Venema)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Optional semi-colons
Message-ID: <291@wzv.UUCP>
Date: 29 Apr 89 12:10:18 GMT
References: <9244@alice.UUCP> <12716@lanl.gov> <10134@smoke.BRL.MIL> <41117@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Reply-To: wietse@wzv.UUCP (Wietse Z. Venema)
Organization: Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Lines: 15

In article <41117@oliveb.olivetti.com> chase@Ozona.UUCP (David Chase) writes:
>
>  BCPL programs are written in free format. ... `end of line' has the 
>  effect of terminating a statement if syntactically this is possible.  
>
>This just makes the "why does C do it the other way" question more
>curious; the only explanation that comes to mind is that it makes it
>easier to write programs that generate programs (lex and yacc, e.g.).

For example, the C preprocessor. Having a unique statement terminator frees
the programmer of worrying where newlines might show up after macro expansion.
-- 
work:	wswietse@eutrc3.uucp	| Eindhoven University of Technology
work:	wswietse@heitue5.bitnet	| Mathematics and Computing Science
home:	wietse@wzv.uucp		| Eindhoven, The Netherlands