functions within functions

[Rex Jaeschke]

> Re: functions within functions

MetaWare's High C has had nested functions now probably for 4-5 years. 
(Interestingly, MetaWare is/was a big user of Pascal, and High C versions 
earlier than the most recent one were actually written in their extended 
Pascal.)

I documented their nested function extension (along with several other 
extensions) in Vol 2, num 3 (Dec 1990) of The Journal of C Language 
Translation on page 240. (Their very interesting iterator extension is 
covered in Vol 2/4 in Mar '91.)

To add nested functions they use ! as a postfix punctuator in function 
declarations. Late in 1990 Bjarne Stroustrup proposed using this notation 
to solve a problem re alternate trigraphs at the ISO C level. As such, I 
informed him this conflicted with MetaWare's prior art.

Rex

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rex Jaeschke     |  Journal of C Language Translation  | C Users Journal
(703) 860-0091   |        2051 Swans Neck Way          | DEC PROFESSIONAL
rex at aussie.COM   |     Reston, Virginia 22091, USA     | Programmers Journal
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Convener of the Numerical C Extensions Group (NCEG)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------