Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!kddlab!titcca!sragwa!wsgw!socslgw!diamond!diamond
From: diamond@diamond.csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: strings
Message-ID: <10259@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET>
Date: 17 May 89 05:23:36 GMT
References: <10250@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET> <10263@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Sender: news@csl.sony.JUNET
Reply-To: diamond@csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond)
Organization: Sony Computer Science Laboratory Inc., Tokyo, Japan
Lines: 34

Doug Gwyn:

>>>If you want counted strings, C makes it relatively easy to provide
>>>them for yourself.

me:

>>Good luck porting other people's strictly conforming programs though.
>>They might use C strings.
>>Good luck persuading someone else to port your programs.

Doug Gwyn:

>I don't understand your comment.  Of course the C compiler and library
>continue to support null-terminated strings.  Defining your own
>counted-string data type and functions doesn't affect that at all.
>Furthermore there is no reason your counted-string implementation
>should be other than perfectly portable.

Yes, just like the C compiler continues to support { and }, but you
can do:
  #define BEGIN {
  #define END   }
or (sorry Bjarne but it's true)
  #define Case  break; case
and still be perfectly portable.  Everyone will hate you.  A lot of
C programmers, such as for example Doug Gwyn, expect standard facilities
to be used.

--
Norman Diamond, Sony Computer Science Lab (diamond%csl.sony.co.jp@relay.cs.net)
  The above opinions are my own.   |  Why are programmers criticized for
  If they're also your opinions,   |  re-implementing the wheel, when car
  you're infringing my copyright.  |  manufacturers are praised for it?