Max line length (was Re: programming challenge ...)

[Blair P. Houghton]

In article <2314 at buengc.BU.EDU> bph at buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>In article <3072 at nunki.usc.edu> jeenglis at nunki.usc.edu (Joe English) writes:
>>guy at auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris) writes:
>>>
>>>December 7, 1988 draft, says:
>>>	2.2.4.1 Translation limits
>>>
>>>	   The implementation shall be able to translate and execute
>>>	at least one program that contains at least one instance of
>>>	every one of the following limits:
>>
>>Shouldn't it say instead:
[...you've seen that part...]

Some of what I replied:
>The program implied by "at least one program" would therefore be the
>program with all of its syntax perfectly C, and using _all_ of the
>limits given.

Yep.  I'm wrong, and it's that snidely whiplash, Doug Gwyn, that dood it,
by posting the rationale.

It seems that "all of its syntax perfectly C" is completely ingermane.

2.2.4.1 implies that a {Fortran,Pascal,Algol,*} program that exercises
all of the 2.2.4.1 limits is acceptable C wrt 2.2.4.1.  The fact that
it breaks all the other rules doesn't matter to 2.2.4.1.  That's what
all the other rules are for.

And they came up with 509 chars as a minimum maximum-edible line length
to give small computers a chance.  I assume this means that an
implementation that allows, say, 1021 chars on a line would be
encouraging the creation of non-universally-portable code, and therefore
there's something that makes such an implementation non-conforming.

Yes?

				--Blair
				  "510 or Fight!"