The_Sage & void main()

T

The_Sage

Reply to article by: (e-mail address removed) (Alan Morgan)
Date written: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 17:25:09 +0000 (UTC)
MsgID:<[email protected]>
I just checked with my friend Joshua. He was surprised to discover he is female
and wants to know if he should tell his wife. Please advise.

I know of a boy named Sue, so tell him his parents are very nice.

The Sage

=============================================================
My Home Page : http://members.cox.net/the.sage

"The biggest problem in the world, could have been solved
when it was small..." -- Lao Tzu
=============================================================
 
C

Chris Johnson

The_Sage wrote: said:
For those joining in late, that is the typical sort of lying and stupidity that
comes from this newsgroup. The discussion so far has only been...
*SPECIFIC NOTE*
Sage : I use void main()
and conviently dropped how you don't need a ; as a } is suffecient to end
as statement terminator...
*SPECIFIC NOTE*

The above specifically highlighted as I like how all mention of this has
been dropped by you yet you continue to pollute this NG with anything that
you can possibly convolute in so far as you perceive "wiggle room"
Greg : You aren't allowed to do that
*AND* be able to call it standard C++ code
ISO : "The main function shall have a return type of type int but otherwise
in all other respects the main functions type is
implementation-defined"
That is not what the standard says in your paraphrase. Anyone with the
standard knows this. The positive out of this is anyone new to the
langauage trying to use this as a resource for learning will see how the
entire world is against you and your perceived understanding and therefore
not use it, it being your understanding, as Bible like the following:
IBM : We agree with Sage and that's why we provide it for him to use irrelevant
MS : We agree with Sage and that's why we provide it for him to use irrelevant
Borland : We agree with Sage and that's why we provide it for him to use irrelevant
Greg : That isn't what the Standard meant Correct
Dict. : "but otherwise means in addition to the aforementiond, there are
exceptions...
[OT] This is not comp.lang.dictionary
Greg : Wah! I want my mommy!
[OT] I've filtered this thread temporarily so I can't confirm this but I would
venture to guess more of your paraphrasing and is completely false and
incorrect as well. Please notice how if you have a reputation of making
stupid comments it will be *implied* for all future comments??? You seem
to be big on the dictionary - look up reputation.

This thread is now going back to being filtered.
The Sage you have now been moved from a temporary killfile to a permanent
one. The one time I remove you from it this is how you redeem yourself.
Perhaps I should have looked up the word reputation?
 
S

SomeDumbGuy

The_Sage said:
Yes I did.

The quote above is your quote of 'I never said it was an "english
name",...' I agreed with you.
I am not sure what you are trying to say here.


English has no restrictions on what names you can give your children.

True, but the name is still non-English. Kiko is a woman's name in
Japanese. I can use it, sure. I can even name a boy with Kiko if I so
choose. I can't say it is "male" because it ends with "o." If someone
Japanese were to hear the name they would assume female, regardless of
what I, as an english speaker used it as. There are no restrictions on
my use of it that is true, but because I use it differently than it was
intended does make it "correct."


what "but otherwise" literally means.

Actually, 90% of the people in these newsgroups can't figure that out either,
including Mr/Mrs/It Attila.

Your interpretation is possible, that is also true.
However, when the people that *wrote* it state that it was not how it
was meant to be taken, a better (in my option) follow up argument would
be to state something like, "perhaps you should consider re-wording the
line so this will not happen to others."
Then you get to say you had a hand in re-writing the C++ standard. :)
As it is you are just going in a circle.
 
D

Dunny

The_Sage said:
You aren't very literate for living with an English Teacher. Can you
ask your Teacher to get a dictionary and look up the words "but" and
"otherwise" and tell us what they mean when applied to the sentence
from the ISO Standard that states, ""The main function shall have a
return type of type int but otherwise in all other respects the main
functions type is implementation-defined". Of course, this presumes
you really do live with an English Teacher.

Yeah, she's already read your assertions and laughed at them. Your
interpretation of the English is still wrong, it refers to two seperate
properties of the object (the object being the function "Main"), said properties
being it's type and it's return type. The type can be pretty much anything the
implementor wishes, but the return type must be of type int. You've been told
this before numerous times, and chosen to ignore it though, so I'm not bothered
what your reply is - you're still wrong, and always will be on this point! :)

Drop the grammar argument, you're not going to win. Concentrate instead on
this -

Borland C++ Builder will compile void main, but only if you turn ansi compliance
*off*. This *could* be interpreted as being "implementation defined", but if it
were standard to do this, then it wouldn't require standard compliance to be
turned off.

You're still very funny, you know. Keep going, we're enjoying this :)

D.
 
W

WW

The_Sage said:
No, actually this was WW's off topic dodge and evade of issues he
can't figure out like the difference between a return type and a
parameter or the difference between killing a process and ending a
program or what the dictioanry states what "but otherwise" literally
means.

Actually, 90% of the people in these newsgroups can't figure that out
either, including Mr/Mrs/It Attila.

The_Sage said:
So Attila is my Father? It is bad enough that you can't tell the
difference ... now you cannot even tell the difference
between male and female?

The above: Tha Sage Rage starting the off topic dodge and evade, in post
<[email protected]>

FYI: WW and Attila is the same person. Amusing that you have not realized
it for several weeks now.

Still all I can say to you is: may your mouth be convinced of my real
gender.
 
A

Attila Feher

The_Sage wrote:
[CRAP]

According to the gurus our "Sage" is fake:

The Way of Heaven is to benefit others and not to injure.
The Way of the *sage* is to act but *not to compete*.
/Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu/
 
G

glen stark

Snip...
"...its type is implementation-defined"

Therefore, any compiler that implement-defines other types of main() functions,
in addition to int main(), types like void main() for example, are ISO
compliant, hence since MS, Borland, and IBM use int main() AND ALSO
IMPLEMENT/DEFINE void main(), they are therefore also ISO compliant.

I have yet to be proved wrong -- care to give it try yourself? Stop your yapping
and let's see what you are really made of.

The Sage
Didn't I see you once at the masochistic necrophilia-bestiality convenction?
 
T

The_Sage

Reply to article by: "Dunny said:
Date written: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 09:53:37 +0100
MsgID:<[email protected]>
Yeah, she's already read your assertions and laughed at them.

Is that the best she could do? Just laugh? No web links to english sites, no
links to online dictionaries, just flap her lips like you do yours?
Your interpretation of the English is still wrong,

Just because you say so? You don't know shit about english.
it refers to two seperate
properties of the object (the object being the function "Main"), said properties
being it's type and it's return type. The type can be pretty much anything the
implementor wishes, but the return type must be of type int. You've been told
this before numerous times, and chosen to ignore it though, so I'm not bothered
what your reply is - you're still wrong, and always will be on this point! :)
Drop the grammar argument, you're not going to win.

I already did. All you could "refute" my argument with was the hearsay of some
imginary teacher and the meresay of your big mouth. I have a dictionary that
proves you are both idiots because the definition of "but otherwise" proves
there can be exceptions to int main(). Come on Danny boy, tell us what the
dictionary says about "but otherwise".

But I know you aren't going to tackle that "challenge" and you know you aren't
going to tackle that "challenge" because we both know you are wrong and you
don't have a leg to stand on.

See Danny boy run. Run Danny boy run. Stay away from dictionaries Danny boy, or
they will prove you don't know anything except how to talk out your arse.
Concentrate instead on this -

I'm not letting get off that easy. I asked a simple, reasonable question, so
either answer the question or give us a good excuse for not wanting to answer
it...

Can you get a dictionary and look up the words "but" and "otherwise" and tell
us what they mean when applied to the sentence from the ISO Standard that
states, ""The main function shall have a return type of type int but otherwise
in all other respects the main functions type is implementation-defined".

Here, I will even give both of you a head start...

http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/b/b0577100.html and
http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/o/o0147100.html
Borland C++ Builder will compile void main, but only if you turn ansi compliance
*off*. This *could* be interpreted as being "implementation defined", but if it
were standard to do this, then it wouldn't require standard compliance to be
turned off.

After you are able tell us what "but otherwise" means, concentrate on this...

So if one's compiler's documentation happens to say anywhere that main may
have the return type void then main may indeed have the return type void and a
program with void main() is a conforming program.

This is the case for at least the following compilers:

Watcom C/C++. The C Library Reference for Watcom's C compiler says that "the
main function can be declared to return void".

IBM VisualAge C/C++. The Language Reference for IBM VisualAge C/C++ says that
main "can also be declared to return void".

Microsoft Visual C/C++. The MSDN documentation says that main "can be declared
as returning void".

...

Other compilers are in between:

The documentation for Borland C/C++ is littered with sample programs that
define a void main() function, but it does not explicitly list this as a legal
definition of main, so - somewhat ironically - most of the example code in
Borland's documentation is non-conforming.

The documentation for Comeau C/C++ implies that main may have a return type
other than int where it discusses the semantics of falling off the end of
main() without a return statement, but does not explicitly specify what
additional definitions of main it allows.

When this page was first published, Comeau C/C++ used void main() in its
examples as well. However, Greg Comeau was shown this web page, and in
response changed the examples to use int main(). He did not correct the
aforementioned implication, however. (Nor did he inform me of the change. I
found out only by accident.)

The documentation for Digital Mars C/C++ also uses void main() in its
examples.
http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/FGA/legality-of-void-main.html
You're still very funny, you know. Keep going, we're enjoying this :)

You would be funny if your case wasn't so sad. You should be on the Jerry
Springer show, along with all those other storytelling losers.

The Sage

=============================================================
My Home Page : http://members.cox.net/the.sage

"The biggest problem in the world, could have been solved
when it was small..." -- Lao Tzu
=============================================================
 
T

The_Sage

Reply to article by: SomeDumbGuy said:
Date written: Thu, 09 Oct 2003 03:34:56 GMT
MsgID:<[email protected]>
The quote above is your quote of 'I never said it was an "english
name",...' I agreed with you.
I am not sure what you are trying to say here.

Sorry 'bout that. What I meant was I had said in the english langauge, which we
were all speaking in, Attila is a given name for females. If that still doesn't
make sense, forget it, since you are correct, we do agree anyway.
True, but the name is still non-English. Kiko is a woman's name in
Japanese. I can use it, sure. I can even name a boy with Kiko if I so
choose. I can't say it is "male" because it ends with "o." If someone
Japanese were to hear the name they would assume female, regardless of
what I, as an english speaker used it as. There are no restrictions on
my use of it that is true, but because I use it differently than it was
intended does make it "correct."

99% of all English names are non-english. There are lots of German, French,
Italian, Latin, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese...but very little real English names.
But still, people do not give female-sounding names (the -a comes to mind) to
males. There are exceptions, but they are only exceptions and not the rule.
Your interpretation is possible, that is also true.
However, when the people that *wrote* it state that it was not how it
was meant to be taken, a better (in my option) follow up argument would
be to state something like, "perhaps you should consider re-wording the
line so this will not happen to others."

That is a very intelligent thing to say.
Then you get to say you had a hand in re-writing the C++ standard. :)
As it is you are just going in a circle.

I'm not interested in taking part in that. The future belongs to JAVA anyway.

The Sage

=============================================================
My Home Page : http://members.cox.net/the.sage

"The biggest problem in the world, could have been solved
when it was small..." -- Lao Tzu
=============================================================
 
A

Andre Kostur

Heck... it's Friday night... I'm bored silly... so I'll take my poke at
the troll....


Let the record show that that The_Sage has quoted "The main function
shall have a return type of type int but otherwise in all other respects
the main functions type is implementation-defined" from the Standard. If
I recall correctly that isn't an exact quote from the Standard, but for
argument's sake I'll temporarily accept it as a close enough paraphrase.
(I don't have a copy of the Standard myself, and offhand I don't want to
go find where it had been posted before... but the paraphrase looks close
enough.)
I'm not letting get off that easy. I asked a simple, reasonable
question, so either answer the question or give us a good excuse for
not wanting to answer it...

Can you get a dictionary and look up the words "but" and "otherwise"
and tell us what they mean when applied to the sentence from the ISO
Standard that states, ""The main function shall have a return type of
type int but otherwise in all other respects the main functions type
is implementation-defined".

Here, I will even give both of you a head start...

http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/b/b0577100.html and
http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/o/o0147100.html

OK... let's look at your definitions and the statement that they are
applying to.

"otherwise". Definition 3 of your referenced dictionary: "In other
respects". Note the word "other" in there. It excludes already
mentioned aspects of a main function's type. The return type of a
function is only part of a function's type.

So... inserting the appropriate definitions in the appropriate places:

"The main function shall have a return type of type int but in all other
respects the main function's type is implementation defined"

Again, I draw your attention to the word "other". (From your favourite
dictionary: http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/o/o0146800.html)
Definition 1b in particular: "Being the remaining ones of several". The
main function's type has more than one component. In particular it has
at least a return type, and a certain number, type, and order of
parameters. The first part of the sentence specifies what the return
type must be, and the second part (y'know, the stuff after the "but")
specifies what the remaining components of main's type must be.
After you are able tell us what "but otherwise" means, concentrate on
this...

See above.
So if one's compiler's documentation happens to say anywhere that
main may have the return type void then main may indeed have the
return type void

True. If the compiler accepts void main(), then you may use void main()
with that compiler.
and a program with void main() is a conforming
program.

False. Compiler acceptance is not a determining factor in whether some
piece of source code is conforming or not. That would fall back to the
Standard, which, as we see above, precludes main from returning anything
but int. And that's ignoring the fact that you're quoting a chunk of
text that's talking about C and not C++.... read the top of the page that
your quoting from:

void main() is not legal in C++ but is legal in C.

You've come to this page because you've said something similar to

void main() is not legal in the C language. main() is required
to return int.

Note that they specifically mention "the C language", and not 'the C++
language". C != C++.
This is the case for at least the following compilers:

Watcom C/C++. The C Library Reference for Watcom's C compiler says
that "the main function can be declared to return void".

Which only means that Watcom C/C++ will accept void main(). Says nothing
about whether void main() is conforming or not.
IBM VisualAge C/C++. The Language Reference for IBM VisualAge C/C++
says that main "can also be declared to return void".

Which only means that IBM Visual Age C/C++ will accept void main(). Says
nothing about whether void main() is conforming or not.
Microsoft Visual C/C++. The MSDN documentation says that main "can
be declared as returning void".

Which only means that Microsoft Visual C/C++ will accept void main().
Says nothing about whether void main() is conforming or not.

Nice elipsis that glosses over the compilers (that this document
mentions) that don't have the same compiler extensions. Not damning
evidence against you since you don't claim that compilers _must_ support
other forms of main... but an interesting choice to omit.
Other compilers are in between:

The documentation for Borland C/C++ is littered with sample programs
that define a void main() function, but it does not explicitly list
this as a legal definition of main, so - somewhat ironically - most
of the example code in Borland's documentation is non-conforming.

Sure... most of the example code in Borland's documentation is non-
conforming C++. What's your point?
The documentation for Comeau C/C++ implies that main may have a
return type other than int where it discusses the semantics of
falling off the end of main() without a return statement, but does
not explicitly specify what additional definitions of main it
allows.

Not having seen the documentation for Comeau C/C++, I can't support or
refute your claims. However, if all it does is mention that falling off
the end of main is equivalent to a "return 0;", then they have done
nothing to support that main may return anything other than int.
When this page was first published, Comeau C/C++ used void main() in
its examples as well. However, Greg Comeau was shown this web page,
and in response changed the examples to use int main(). He did not
correct the aforementioned implication, however. (Nor did he inform
me of the change. I found out only by accident.)

I wasn't aware that all vendors must publish their changes through you.
And it can simply be that they have chosen to amend their examples to
stop using a vendor-specific compiler extension in preference to using
conformant examples. I commend them on their choice to be conformant.
The documentation for Digital Mars C/C++ also uses void main() in
its examples.
http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/FGA/legality-of-void-mai
n.html

Again, you point to this page which _explictly_ refutes your claim (Hey,
_you_ supplied the page, not me. So it's reasonable to assume that you
support the content of that page as well). Look at the title. It says
in no uncertain terms that in C++, void main() is not legal. Continue
reading through the article and it is quite careful to keep stating that
void main() isn't legal in C++. What this page has to say about C is
irrelevant to this discussion (and newsgroup). You want to talk about
void main() in C? Go to a C newsgroup. This is Standard C++ only [note
that I removed the asm newsgroup]. I know the last time someone pointed
this out to you, you said something along the lines of "Ignore that, but
look at the list of compilers at the bottom which allow void main()!".
(And again, back to the argument that having a compiler accept a piece of
code does not made the code well-formed w.r.t. the Standard.)
 
G

Greg Comeau

The documentation for Comeau C/C++ implies that main may have a return type
other than int where it discusses the semantics of falling off the end of
main() without a return statement, but does not explicitly specify what
additional definitions of main it allows.

When this page was first published, Comeau C/C++ used void main() in its
examples as well. However, Greg Comeau was shown this web page, and in
response changed the examples to use int main(). He did not correct the
aforementioned implication, however. (Nor did he inform me of the change. I
found out only by accident.)

Please, I already pointed out that this is ridiculous.
If you are the author of that page, you should remove it.
 
B

Bill Marcum

What country is he and his parents from originally?

The Sage
Not that it matters, but if you read the Bible, that Joshua was also
male. Many English and European names originally came from the Bible.
 

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