C Builtin Funxions

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <2524 at brl-smoke.ARPA> rbj at icst-cmr (root) writes:
>Before I flame at the bogosity of this proposed madness, I will entertain
>suggestions as to why this decision was made. Fire away.
>
>However, most builtin funxions will accept user redefinitions. Will this
>be allowed, or must we resort to #defines to avoid hacking up the
>sources to change every funxion we wish to redefine. And will this even
>work? It's conceivable that the preprocessor could be integrated with
>the compiler proper and not a separate pass/program in some implementations.

In a hosted (ONLY) implementation, some library functions
are likely to call on other library functions; if you
redefine library functions yourself, you may well break
other apparently unrelated library functions.  The only
relatively safe redefinition would be one with a standard-
conforming interface, but then why not just use the one
provided?

In a free-standing implementation, of course, you can
define all your own functions similar to those provided
in a hosted environment.