Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!hplsla!jima
From: jima@hplsla.HP.COM (Jim Adcock)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: address of virtual function (revisited)
Message-ID: <6590127@hplsla.HP.COM>
Date: 17 May 89 20:02:03 GMT
References: <904@garya.Solbourne.COM>
Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA
Lines: 25

> The folks from AT&T have stated, in this newsgroup, on several
> occasions, that they are working on a complete reference manual for
> C++, intended to provide a full specification of the language.  They
> already know that such a thing is urgently needed; it won't do any
> good to keep reminding them.  I'm as eager to receive a final and
> complete spec as everyone else, but I understand that these things are
> quite a lot of work, and they take time.

I'm not talking about a complete up-to-date language reference -- although
g*d knows we need such a thing.  I'm talking about a reference on how
a *compiler* "works" -- what kind of code it generates, and why, in
a variety of situations?  And what are its limitations, where does it
fail to generate code?  The areas I listed before are what confuses me
the most about existing compilers -- also how they handle automatic
generation of functions to handle assignment, initialization, how temporaries
are handled etc.

I can make little changes in C++ code, and get radically differing results
in the code generated -- for no apparent reasons.  There are many situations
where I have not been able to "reverse engineer" what is going on.  It
would be nice to know.

The code generation issues are much more complex in C++ than in C.
It's important to know how a compiler is going to handle various situations,
and how the various compilers differ.