References and pointers

[Golden California Girls]

It requires something on which to run. Not a constant something.

You know, I get the feeling it doesn't; that's why real work can't be done in
standard C and to do real work extensions are always required.

 

[Golden California Girls]

Typical of this group - they throw the rulebook at everyone in sight
when actually they've made it all up themselves.

Fizzbin!

 

[Richard Heathfield]

CBFalconer said:

It requires something on which to run.

Yes - but an abstract machine will do nicely, and C interpreters are
perfectly legal; so arguments about conformance based on machine code
output simply don't wash.

I still don't see your objection to this particular extension. I can see
why it's off-topic per se, but not why you think the provision of
reference syntax (subject to appropriate diagnostic messages being
produced during translation) renders an implementation non-conforming.

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Richard Tobin said:

Of course the meaning of "clc-conforming" is a matter of dispute...

One successful definition that has been posted here before is this: "a C
program is clc-conforming if and only if it is clc-conforming".

 

[Richard Heathfield]

James Kanze said:

When was the charter eliminated?

Never, because it never existed.

It has one 15 years ago, when
I was still reading it regularly.

No, it didn't.

(15 years ago, it was
impossible to create a group without a charter.)

25 years ago, however, it was not impossible.

comp.lang.c++ had a charter

Given your incorrect assertion about comp.lang.c, I have to remain
sceptical about this claim about comp.lang.c++. Sorry.

Certainly. As long as there is a diagnostic if the input is ill
formed according to the C standard.

Well, the C standard doesn't define "ill formed" as far as I know - but if
the program contains any syntax errors or constraint violations, including
those caused by the use of extensions, a diagnostic message is required.
That doesn't mean the provision of the extension is forbidden, or that
such provision renders the implementation non-conforming (as you had
suggested).

If lcc-win compiles
something along the lines of:

struct S operator+( struct S&, struct S& ) ;

without a diagnostic, it isn't a C compiler.

Nevertheless, *with* a diagnostic message, it can remain one.

 

[Joachim Schmitz]

What '< ... >' convention? Anyway, the problem is very easy to solve -
get a different newsreader. There are many available, even free, which
do a much better job. If you must insist on using OE, look for a free
program named OE-Express, which will make OE into a reasonable
approximation of a real newsreader.

Please elaborate on this

AFAIK "OE" == "Outlook Express", so "OE Express" would mean "Outlook Express
Express"?!?!
Outlook itself (i.e. without "Express" in it's name) doesn't contain a
Newsreader.

Bye, Jojo

 

[Philip Potter]

Richard Tobin said:



One successful definition that has been posted here before is this: "a C
program is clc-conforming if and only if it is clc-conforming".

This definition is slightly less useful than that of "strictly conforming".

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Philip Potter said:

This definition is slightly less useful than that of "strictly
conforming".

Theoretically, yes, you're right. In practice, the class of clc-conforming
programs (that is, the set of all programs that are considered acceptable
by clc experts) is a useful one, providing as it does a sort of halfway
house between the uselessly loose "conforming" category and the almost
uselessly tight "strictly conforming" category. The problem is that what
constitutes a clc-conforming program is very hard to pin down.

 

[Al Balmer]

Please elaborate on this

AFAIK "OE" == "Outlook Express", so "OE Express" would mean "Outlook Express
Express"?!?!
Outlook itself (i.e. without "Express" in it's name) doesn't contain a
Newsreader.

How did I manage that? Sorry, the name is OE-QuoteFix. To make up for
the gaff, I looked up a source:
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/

 

[CBFalconer]

CBFalconer said:

Yes - but an abstract machine will do nicely, and C interpreters
are perfectly legal; so arguments about conformance based on
machine code output simply don't wash.

Fine. Then replace 'machine code' with 'interpreted instructions'.

I still don't see your objection to this particular extension. I
can see why it's off-topic per se, but not why you think the
provision of reference syntax (subject to appropriate diagnostic
messages being produced during translation) renders an
implementation non-conforming.

Partly for the amusement of arguing, intensified by the rightness
of my argument

 

[Joachim Schmitz]

How did I manage that? Sorry, the name is OE-QuoteFix. To make up for
the gaff, I looked up a source:
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/

Excellent, thanks!

Bye, Jojo

 

[James Kanze]

I'm dropping the comp.lang.c++ cross-post, since the following applies
only to comp.lang.c.

That contradicts my understanding.

As I said, people quoted it (or claimed to), and posted links to
it. Where it actually came from, I don't know---c.l.c does
predate my own participation in news. But there was definitely
something that was considered by many or most as its charter.

As I understand it, comp.lang.c was renamed from net.lang.c during the
Great Renaming. The net.lang.c newsgroup was created before charters
were required for newsgroup creation. There was a posted message
(that's been quoted here) describing the suggested subject matter for
net.lang.c, but it wasn't a "charter" in the modern formalized sense.

That's probably true. It might not be a charter in the sense
that it was the basis of a vote when the newsgroup was created,
but at least when I was active in the group (up until about
1993/1994), it was treated as a charter.

Usenet has evolved considerably since then, including the
creation of comp.std.c. (If comp.std.c didn't exist,
comp.lang.c presumably would be the place to discuss proposed
changes to the standard.)

That doesn't follow from what you quoted; was it meant to?

Before C99, "long long" was an extension. If the topic of
discussion is to be "one of the standards from ANSI C89 on or
of pre-standard K&R C",

That's not my phrase, and I don't really agree with it (unless
you take a very liberal view as to what you understand by
"pre-standard K&R C". The charter, or whatever served in its
place, certainly didn't say anything about "standard C".

The difference, of course, is that long long is (and was) widely
implemented, by a large number of different C compilers. That
made it, by a sort of a consensus, C, even if it wasn't standard
C. Similarly, a bug in a compiler which means that there is
some strange but legal code which it doesn't compiler doesn't
mean that the compiler isn't a C compiler.

But I think you'd agree with me that there is a very great
difference between implementing long long a bit before the
standard said you could, and adding operator overloading,
references, and who knows what all else to your compiler.
There's not a precise line where it stops being C, but there are
some limits, somewhere.

then "long long" would have been off-topic before the adoption
of C99. It would have been topical in comp.std.c (discussing
the then-proposed new standard) or in a newsgroup for a
specific system or compiler.

That's not the way I understand it. Similarly, I consider long
long on topic in clc++, even though the version of the standard
which consacrates it hasn't been formally adopted yet. (The
issue isn't quite the same, of course, because there is a very
strong consensus in the C++ committee that integral types in C++
will be compatible with C, and that whatever C adopts in this
regard will make it into the next version of the C++ standard.)

 

[J. J. Farrell]

It had one 15 years ago. At least, people quoted it, and posted
links to it.

That doesn't agree with my memory or the archives. According to Google,
between 1 Jan 1990 and 1 Jan 1996 there were several complaints about
messages being "off-charter", and there was a suggestion that the
charter should be posted from time to time, but I don't see any quotes
from or links to the charter. There were several messages pointing out
that c.l.c doesn't have a charter, though. It's fairly clear that most
people back then were using the term "c.l.c charter" to mean "the
current informal unwritten majority view of topicality".