boolean values and the FAQ

J

jacob navia

The section about boolean values should mention
<stdbool.h> at least. It is still at the C89 stage...
(Section 9)
 
D

Dan Pop

In said:
The section about boolean values should mention
<stdbool.h> at least. It is still at the C89 stage...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So is the C programming community at large.

Dan
 
J

jacob navia

Dan Pop said:
In <[email protected]> "jacob navia"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So is the C programming community at large.

So what?

The current standard is C99. Period.

The FAQ should mention the current version of the standard.
I am not advocating dropping all references to C89, but the
current standard should be mentioned.
 
D

Dan Pop


So this is what people writing C code care about. When the importance of
portable programming penetrates your thick skull, you'll understand why.
The current standard is C99. Period.

So what?!? You're not posting to comp.std.c, are you?
The FAQ should mention the current version of the standard.

Sez who? The FAQ maintainer obviously thinks otherwise, as the [ISO]
tag means:

International Organization for Standardization, ISO 9899:1990
(see question 11.2). [ISO]
I am not advocating dropping all references to C89, but the
current standard should be mentioned.

Who are you to decide what the FAQ *should* do? Start your own FAQ and
put whatever you want there. Then see if anyone else cares about it.
Your C tutorial has already been a tremendous success in c.l.c, hasn't it?

Dan
 
K

Kevin Bracey

In said:

So this is what people writing C code care about. When the importance of
portable programming penetrates your thick skull, you'll understand why.
The current standard is C99. Period.

So what?!? You're not posting to comp.std.c, are you?
The FAQ should mention the current version of the standard.

Sez who? The FAQ maintainer obviously thinks otherwise, as the [ISO]
tag means:

International Organization for Standardization, ISO 9899:1990
(see question 11.2). [ISO]
I am not advocating dropping all references to C89, but the
current standard should be mentioned.

Who are you to decide what the FAQ *should* do? Start your own FAQ and
put whatever you want there. Then see if anyone else cares about it.
Your C tutorial has already been a tremendous success in c.l.c, hasn't it?

I think there must be some sort of annual cycle of Mr Pop unpleasantness; I
think I last killfiled him about the same time last year. Maybe he's trying
for the title of c.l.c's most annoying poster? I personally find him far more
of an irritant than the mere incompetents and general trolls like ERT. At
least they're not vindictive, unpleasant sociopaths with far too much posting
time on their hands.

*PLONK*
 
J

jacob navia

Kevin Bracey said:
In message <[email protected]>
(e-mail address removed) (Dan Pop) wrote: [snip]

I think there must be some sort of annual cycle of Mr Pop unpleasantness; I
think I last killfiled him about the same time last year. Maybe he's trying
for the title of c.l.c's most annoying poster? I personally find him far more
of an irritant than the mere incompetents and general trolls like ERT. At
least they're not vindictive, unpleasant sociopaths with far too much posting
time on their hands.

*PLONK*

Well I surely agree with this description :)

I can't understand that the same people that strictly say that only
STANDARD C is on topic in this list now say that the C99 standard is
irrelevant. I just want that the FAQ *mentions* the standard
boolean interface header <stdbool.h> !!!

References:

ANSI/ISO C Standard 7.15 Boolean type and values <stdbool.h>
 
E

E. Robert Tisdale

jacob said:
The section about boolean values should mention
<stdbool.h> at least. It is still at the C89 stage...

The C FAQ is obsolete.
It needs to be brought up-to-date.
 
B

Ben Pfaff

jacob navia said:
I just want that the FAQ *mentions* the standard boolean
interface header <stdbool.h> !!!

There's nothing anybody but the FAQ maintainer can do about that.
Take it up with Steve Summit.
 
S

Steve Summit

Indeed it should. I'll make a note. Thanks.

E. Robert Tisdale said:
The C FAQ is obsolete.

I'm biased, of course, but I think that's a *little* strong.
It needs to be brought up-to-date.

When's the last time you looked at the version posted here?

Steve Summit
(e-mail address removed)
 
K

Keith Thompson

jacob navia said:
The section about boolean values should mention
<stdbool.h> at least. It is still at the C89 stage...
(Section 9)

I agree. The C FAQ was updated just recently; the latest text
version, at <ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/s/scs/C-faq/faq.gz>, is less than
two weeks old (the HTML version hasn't been updated yet). It does
include material about the C99 standard; I'm a little surprised it
doesn't mention C99's new support for boolean types.

(Anyone who thinks the C FAQ *shouldn't* discuss C99 should probably
take it up with Steve Summit.)
 
J

jacob navia

Steve Summit said:
Indeed it should. I'll make a note. Thanks.

Thanks for your work Steve. The other issues I mention in another
post are not very important. If you want I can contribute a lot
of answered questions about Win32 that could replace the MSDOS
part but that is not essential and I leave it at your choice.

jacob
 
C

Christopher Benson-Manica

Kevin Bracey said:
I think there must be some sort of annual cycle of Mr Pop unpleasantness; I
think I last killfiled him about the same time last year. Maybe he's trying
for the title of c.l.c's most annoying poster?

Personally, I'd much prefer being told that I'm wrong in the Dan Pop
manner than not know it.
 
E

E. Robert Tisdale

Steve said:
Indeed it should. I'll make a note. Thanks.



I'm biased, of course, but I think that's a *little* strong.


When's the last time you looked at the version posted here?

I consult the C FAQ frequently.
I don't re-read the entire FAQ every time.
I have probably consulted it at least once in the last week or two.

I think Question 9.1

http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/q9.1.htm

is most relevant here.

What is the right type to use for Boolean values in C?
Why isn't it a standard type?
Should I use #defines or enums for the true and false values?

C does not provide a standard Boolean type,

This is no longer true.

in part because picking one involves a space/time tradeoff
which can best be decided by the programmer.

This isn't a valid reason for not defining a standard boolean type.

I seem to recall that I recently consulted Question 6.16

http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/q6.16.html

How can I dynamically allocate a multidimensional array?

Which does not mention variable dimension arrays --
the safest and simplest solution for new users.

I can't find any FAQ about the restrict keyword.

Question 11.1

http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/q11.1.html

What is the ``ANSI C Standard?''

In addition,
both ANSI and ISO require periodic review of their standards.
This process is beginning in 1995,
and will likely result in a completely revised standard
(nicknamed ``C9X'' on the assumption of completion by 1999).

This information is now almost a decade old.
There is a new standard and the C FAQ should be completely overhauled
to reflect the adoption of that new standard.
 
T

Thomas Matthews

jacob said:
So what?

The current standard is C99. Period.

The FAQ should mention the current version of the standard.
I am not advocating dropping all references to C89, but the
current standard should be mentioned.

So there is a later standard. BFD.
What about all those of us who are forced to use compilers
that are built around the C89 standard?
Many of the companies will not uprade their compilers unless
all of the projects require it. Most of my embedded systems
programming has shown that the C89 standard is adequate and
there isn't a _need_ to upgrade.

But what about legacy projects. I got access to a whole lot
of code that uses #define BOOL, #define TRUE, #define FALSE,
and similar. We are not going to change all that old code
to upgrade it to a standard. Simply because customers will
not pay more for their product than they need to. The money
for upgrading code has to come from somewhere.



--
Thomas Matthews

C++ newsgroup welcome message:
http://www.slack.net/~shiva/welcome.txt
C++ Faq: http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite
C Faq: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/c-faq/top.html
alt.comp.lang.learn.c-c++ faq:
http://www.raos.demon.uk/acllc-c++/faq.html
Other sites:
http://www.josuttis.com -- C++ STL Library book
http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl -- Standard Template Library
 
D

Default User

Christopher said:
Personally, I'd much prefer being told that I'm wrong in the Dan Pop
manner than not know it.


But then again, I'd rather be told I'm wrong in the Chris Torek manner
than the Dan Pop manner.



Brian Rodenborn
 
K

Keith Thompson

E. Robert Tisdale said:
There is a new standard and the C FAQ should be completely overhauled
to reflect the adoption of that new standard.

This is being addressed; see the "Other issues with the FAQ" thread.
(I don't agree that a complete overhaul is in order; the FAQ still
needs to be useful to the many programmers who don't have reliable
access to C99 compilers.)
 
M

Mike Wahler

[S. Summit's C FAQ]
This information is now almost a decade old.
There is a new standard and the C FAQ should be completely overhauled
to reflect the adoption of that new standard.

Here's a key point, I think. AFAIK, not many yet have really
'adopted' C99. Many still write to the C89 standard. I do
agree that it would be good to add C99 stuff to the FAQ, but
I also think C89 info should remain (and both should be clearly
distinguished from one another where the information differs.)

-Mike
 
S

Steve Summit

E. Robert Tisdale said:

I am the first to admit that the HTML version is badly out of date.
But that's not what I asked.
When's the last time you looked at the version posted to comp.lang.c?
I can't find any FAQ about the restrict keyword.

That's because there are no Frequently Asked Questions about
the restrict keyword. (But you're right, I should mention it
in question 11.28, the old `noalias' question. Thanks.)

Steve Summit
(e-mail address removed)
 

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