Need C language Description

Steven Ryan smryan at garth.UUCP
Tue Aug 2 06:15:25 AEST 1988


>>>The fellow can probably get what he's looking for, and more, by
>>>talking with the people at Metaware, Tom Penello for example.

As somebody else pointed out, their compiler is unusual and their definition
is thus unlikely to be widely accepted.

>>A compiler is not a definition. A compiler is an implementation of a
>>definition.
>
>Thanks for explaining something totally irrelevant.
>"Gee, I didn't know that."

That's alright, son, most people don't know either.

How people believe the formal definition of C is something other than `whatever
PCC does on a PDP-11?'

The only formal definition of Cyber Fortran 200 (FTN200) is the compiler.
That's what my project leader said (in essence) when I worked on the
compiler.

How languages do you know which are defined instead of having reference
manuals which are really tutorials in disguise? How often do people resolve
a fine point in the language, not by finding the precise production rules,
but by coding it up on their favorite box, possibly even going down to the
resultant assembly listing?



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