Problems with GCC and/or VAX LINK

Guy Harris guy at auspex.UUCP
Sun Mar 12 06:25:44 AEST 1989


>    I've seen arguments over this behaviour before (some people claim
>    it is the one true way; others disagree).

I cannot imagine why there should be any arguments over this behavior
any more.  The December 7, 1988 dpANS (is that draft now the pANS) says,
quite explicitly:

	3.1.9 Comments

	  ... The contents of a comment are examined only to identify
	multibyte characters and to find the characters */ that
	terminate it.

So, with regards to ANSI C, there is only one side to that debate, not
two.

K&R I doesn't explicitly indicate that the compiler shouldn't match
quotation marks in comments, so if an implementer wants to be a real
asshole he or she can insist on matched quotation marks in comments
without violating the letter of K&R I, I guess. 

However, I'm *extremely* surprised that GCC cares; I don't even think
twice about using apostrophes in comments, and I've seen lots of code
that uses them.



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