Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: HyperC
Message-ID: <12201@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 21 Feb 90 15:00:18 GMT
References: <11186.infoapple.net@pro-generic>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 29

In article <11186.infoapple.net@pro-generic> ericmcg@pro-generic.cts.com (Eric Mcgillicuddy) writes:
>getchar(fp) is called getc(fp) and returns an INT, -1 if an error (not 255 I
>think, although this may work since the flags are set on 8 bit values - it
>would be machine specific though)
>putchar(fp) is called putc(fp) - fp is the prodos file id (0-7). The person
>who wrote this compiler hated to type more than Ritchie, so try reducing
>letters on common C functions, you should find most of them. argc, argc are
>called av, ac by this guy!
>it stops when -1 is encountered. it should be $ffff, so any 8-bit ASCII value
>is good, unless two deletes in a row. I'm not sure, try it.
>I think you will find HyperC much closer to Ansi C than K&R,

I don't claim to know specifics of HyperC, but it would help if you knew C.
Standard C functions getchar() and putchar() have no arguments; getc() and
putc() do, although if your description is correct then HyperC is abusing
them since the standard requires FILE* arguments, not ProDOS file-ID ints.
The value -1 returned by a function has nothing to do with flags being set.
If HyperC extends the sign when returning an 8-bit input byte via getc(),
then it is misimplemented since in that case one of the 256 possible byte
values is indistinguishable from EOF (-1).  Normally this would not be a
problem, as getc() should not sign-extend.  Two deletes in a row would give
you two successive 0x7F (or maybe 0xFF) returns, not a single -1 return.
argc and argv are not functions -- they're conventional names for the
parameters of the main() function, but like all C parameters their names
are not chosen by the implementation and can be chosen by the programmer.
Finally, I doubt very much that HyperC resembles an implementation of ANSI
X3.159-1989 more closely than it resembles an implementation of K&R 1st
Edition Appendix A.  From your description of putc() I wouldn't say it is
very close to either one.