Hello,

Do you know where I can get a copy of the most up to date C++ standard?

Thanks in advance.
_______________________________

Richard Metcalfe,
University of Bradford, UK
Home telephone: (01274) 745428


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ark@research.att.com (Andrew Koenig) wrote:
>In article <34B40D42.3CD1056A@lmco.com>,
>Eric Lemings  <eric.b.lemings@lmco.com> wrote:
>> The C Standard was a true standardization effort; i.e., the C Standard was,
>> at the time, the least common denominator of most existing compilers.

See the January C++ Report's "C++ State of the Union" piece. The beginning
of the article covers exactly this "codify vs. specify" question, and uses
that context for the rest of the article (about the standards process, and
"where we came from, where we are, where we're going" information).

>I don't think so.  For example, I don't recall that many C compilers
>supported `const' before the standard mandated it.

Interestingly, I believe that const was actually adopted from C++.

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On 10 Jan 98 03:05:38 GMT, Eric Lemings <eric.b.lemings@lmco.com>
wrote:

>There can be no correlation drawn between C and C++ from the time that
>the standard was completed to the time that standard-compliant compilers
>appeared on the market.  Why?
>
>The C Standard was a true standardization effort; i.e., the C Standard was,
>at the time, the least common denominator of most existing compilers.  Thus,
>Standard C compilers only needed to be validated rather than enhanced
>to support new language features added by the standard as in the case of
>C++.

I couldn't agree less. :-)

Consider C first. The only reference that could be called official was
K&R1. But by the time the standardization effort started, C had moved
far beyond the confines of that book, apart from the lack of a precise
language specification in K&R1. (Where implementations differed,
generally all of them could claim conformance to the book.)

Where popular existing implementations agreed, the C standard did
ratify the behavior, and that did cover the bulk of the language.

There were numerous areas where no there was no consensus. Three
simple examples: the semantics of converting a negative value to an
unsigned type, the semantics of macro expansions, and the semantics of
enumerated types. There was no common ground, and no implementation
emerged unaffected. For more on the range of differences, see Harbison
and Steele, "C: A Reference Manual". The bulk of the book is devoted
to explaining the variations in semantics among popular C
implementations.

The C Committee added quite a number of new things: new macro
functionality, trigraphs, function prototypes, type long double, wide
and multibyte characters, and a greatly expanded standard library.
Library behavior was also clarified, meaning changed semantics for
some implementations.

Many C implementations had been around for years, with solid customer
bases expecting certain behavior. No compiler (so far as I know) could
continue to deliver their old behavior and also comply with the C
standard.

Now consider C++. The language has evolved, since the release of
Cfront 2.1 and the formation of the C++ Committee at about the same
time, with all the major implementors working together on the C++
Committee. Where implementations differ, it is mainly due to picking
different points along a single evolutionary line as a target. You
don't see the wild branching in language versions that was present in
C compilers prior to its standard.
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ark@research.att.com (Andrew Koenig) writes:

|>  In article <34B40D42.3CD1056A@lmco.com>,
|>  Eric Lemings  <eric.b.lemings@lmco.com> wrote:
|>
|>  > The C Standard was a true standardization effort; i.e., the C Standard was,
|>  > at the time, the least common denominator of most existing compilers.
|>
|>  I don't think so.  For example, I don't recall that many C compilers
|>  supported `const' before the standard mandated it.

Not to mention function prototypes, and of course, the C standardization
committee literally invented a completely new preprocessor.

In fact, I suspect (hope?) that C++ compilers will get in line quicker
than C compilers.  Globally, except for two widespread variants in the
preprocessor, most C compilers were fairly similar, and the need for a
standard, or for conforming to one, wasn't as widely felt as is the case
with C++.  IIRC, you didn't have people trying new features before the C
standard was adopted, and complaining when compilers hadn't implemented
them, as is currently the case with C++.

(One thing pushing this in C++ are the library issues.  C++ without some
form of basic class library is much less interesting, and you really
don't want to have to reinvent your own string and vector.  And the
library that was finally adopted -- STL -- requires many of the new
features.)

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In article <698n8o$geb$1@shell7.ba.best.com>, ncm@nospam.cantrip.org
says...

[ ... ]

> Standard C differs markedly from K&R C, as can be easily seen
> by comparing editions 1 and 2 of K&R itself.

However, the standardization effort was started well after K&R1 was
released, and most compilers had moved well beyond K&R1 well before
the standard was promulgated.  To quote from the paper Dennis Ritchie
presented at HOPL II:

    By 1982 it was clear that C needed formal standardization.
    The best approximation to a standard, the first edition of
    K&R no longer described the language in actual use;

He goes on to mention additions made by the committee such as
prototypes, const, volatile and changes in the promotion rules.

However, he also mentions void and enum as examples of things in
common use before any attempt at standardization which were not
mentioned in K&R1.

--
    Later,
    Jerry.

The Universe is a figment of its own imagination.
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polk@sprintmail.com (Max Polk) writes:

|>  I am hoping that the small changes to the last final draft will be released
|>  soon so that the compiler writers have ample time to prepare!

Any compiler implementer who isn't an active member of the committee
isn't worth buying from.  And active members do know pretty well what
the final version will look like, by applying the latest changes adopted
in the last meeting (and recorded in the minutes of the meeting) to the
most recent draft.

|>  Must we wait
|>  until December 1998 before we have ISO Standard C++?

A copy of the standard, or a conforming compiler.  If the experience
with C is any guide, it will be long after 2000 before you can portably
code in the the adopted standard language.  Some implementers are slower
than others, and new features will have new bugs.

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J. Kanze wrote:

> polk@sprintmail.com (Max Polk) writes:

> |>  Must we wait
> |>  until December 1998 before we have ISO Standard C++?
>
> A copy of the standard, or a conforming compiler.  If the experience
> with C is any guide, it will be long after 2000 before you can portably
> code in the the adopted standard language.  Some implementers are slower
> than others, and new features will have new bugs.

There can be no correlation drawn between C and C++ from the time that
the standard was completed to the time that standard-compliant compilers
appeared on the market.  Why?

The C Standard was a true standardization effort; i.e., the C Standard was,
at the time, the least common denominator of most existing compilers.  Thus,
Standard C compilers only needed to be validated rather than enhanced
to support new language features added by the standard as in the case of
C++.

I agree though: it probably will be long after 2000 (or 1998 at least) before
C++ can be ported easily from compiler to compiler.

Eric.
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Eric Lemings wrote:
>
> The C Standard was a true standardization effort; i.e., the C Standard was,
> at the time, the least common denominator of most existing compilers.  Thus,
> Standard C compilers only needed to be validated rather than enhanced
> to support new language features added by the standard as in the case of
> C++.
>

That is not true. The biggest thing that the C standard added to the
language was prototypes. That led to a major change in the way people
write C code. Probably the next largest addition was locales. And don't
forget trigraphs, wide character support in the standard library, and
many other odds and ends.
 -- Pete
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Eric Lemings  <eric.b.lemings@lmco.com> wrote:
>
>The C Standard was a true standardization effort; i.e., the C Standard was,
>at the time, the least common denominator of most existing compilers.  Thus,
>Standard C compilers only needed to be validated rather than enhanced
>to support new language features added by the standard as in the case of
>C++.

What Eric wrote is often repeated, but is entirely false.

Standard C differs markedly from K&R C, as can be easily seen
by comparing editions 1 and 2 of K&R itself.  It was years before
many of the Unix vendors released Standard-conforming C compilers,
and some justified this by pointing out that customers' code would
not compile on a standard-conforming compiler.  SunOS headers, for
example, still don't even nominally conform, for this reason.  (The
Solarix ones do.)

The locale library in Standard C was invented after CD release, and
when last I checked in '95 some vendors' local libraries still did not
conform.  (E.g. digit grouping specified as { 51, 0 } rather than
{ 3, 0 } in U.S. and European locales was remarkably common, carried
through several OS releases despite repeated bug reports.)

The aftermarket in robust C++ compilers is better than for C compilers
in 1989, so the availability of at least one fully-conforming C++
compiler for any given environment can be expected at least as
quickly as for C.

Nathan Myers
ncm@cantrip.org



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> does anyone know where I could download a copy of the new C++ standard. I
> have a copy of the C++ draft working paper but would like a copy of this
> newer approved version.

In an article by Herb Sutter in the January 1998 C++ Developer's Journal (I
think that is the name of the magazine), by March 1998 the vote will be
complete and a French committee will be held, but then after several months
and even more meetings, as late as August 1998 the standard will become ISO
Standard C++.

I am hoping that the small changes to the last final draft will be released
soon so that the compiler writers have ample time to prepare!  Must we wait
until December 1998 before we have ISO Standard C++?
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does anyone know where I could download a copy of the new C++ standard. I
have a copy of the C++ draft working paper but would like a copy of this
newer approved version.

Thank you in advance

bobp@k2nesoft.com
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