Topic: C/C++ Preprocessor Standards deliberations: where?
Author: James Kanze <james-albert.kanze@vx.cit.alcatel.fr>
Date: 1997/05/14 Raw View
hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) writes:
|> Could anyone please point me to the rationale and discussions leading up
|> to the current ANSI standard definition for what the C/C++ preprocessor
|> does? I've got the ANSI standard itself, but it only talks about what
|> the standard is supposed to do, but not _why_ it does what it does.
I suspect that you are out of luck. The standards committee has decided
not to produce a rationale, for lack of time and/or people willing to do
the work.
About the closest you can get is Bjarne Stroustrup's book "The Design
and Evolution of C++"; it isn't officially blessed by the committee, but
it does give a good general description of the points taken under
consideration for the larger issues.
For the smaller issues, about the only solution is to find someone on
the committee who was there when it was discussed, and ask them.
--
James Kanze home: kanze@gabi-soft.fr +33 (0)1 39 55 85 62
office: kanze@vx.cit.alcatel.fr +33 (0)1 69 63 14 54
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Author: Steve Clamage <stephen.clamage@eng.sun.com>
Date: 1997/05/14 Raw View
James Kanze wrote:
>
> hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) writes:
>
> |> Could anyone please point me to the rationale and discussions leading up
> |> to the current ANSI standard definition for what the C/C++ preprocessor
> |> does? I've got the ANSI standard itself, but it only talks about what
> |> the standard is supposed to do, but not _why_ it does what it does.
>
> I suspect that you are out of luck. The standards committee has decided
> not to produce a rationale, for lack of time and/or people willing to do
> the work.
The C++ version of the preprocessor is intentionally the same as the
C version. The only changes are minor and have to do with unavoidable
differences like the __STDC__ and __cplusplus identifiers.
The ANSI (pre-ISO) C standard included a rationale, and explained
that they strived for maximum compatibility with existing C
preprocessors, and in addition invented standard ways to do a few
things. The current ISO/ANSI C standard does not include the rationale,
but I believe the original ANSI rationale is still available. Check
the FAQ for comp.lang.c.
--
Steve Clamage, stephen.clamage@eng.sun.com
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Author: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker)
Date: 1997/05/06 Raw View
Could anyone please point me to the rationale and discussions leading up
to the current ANSI standard definition for what the C/C++ preprocessor
does? I've got the ANSI standard itself, but it only talks about what
the standard is supposed to do, but not _why_ it does what it does.
Thanks in advance for any help on this.
Please reply to me directly by email, if at all possible.
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