Eco-C Compiler

[Chris DeVoney]

John Lowery wrote about the Eco-C compiler in article <436 at bbnccv.UUCP).
Knowing the product very well (and I admitt some prejuice, the authors are
close friends of mine), I will reply.

>     1.  It  is  true  that the parser barfs on "printf (...)" and not on
> 	"printf(...)".  (note  the  space).

You're right, he doesn't like it, but he need not accept it.
K&R don't say it's ok to put a space between the function name and 
parens, ANSI don't say it okay, and I just avoid the practice. Oh, well.
(Flames expected).

>     2.  Functions  may  be  a  little  different.   From examples in K&R
> 	putc() uses an int c;.  putc() in Eco-C expects a char.

Per C spec., any function argument passed as a char goes to an int.
Eco does do this. The library for version pre 2.71 was closer to
V7. The current release is darn close to SysV. You are right
that the documentation has a couple of mislabled argument.

>     3.  The compiler hates my ramdisk.  

You got me on this one. Tim Leslie, the author, has been running the
compiler off of VDISK in DOS 3 and has no problems. I think there is
some hostile interaction between Quadram's ramdisk program and Eco. Tim
suggests you send me a copy of the program and he'll check it out.

He gets additional memory from the DOS alloc/dealloc memory function calls, 
not the BIOS. Maybe there is some problem between the ramdisk, Eco-C, and
DOS.

>     4.  Included  below  is a (large) fragment of code that will compile
> 	fine but will not open and read the correct file.

It took me about two readthroughs to figure this one out. fopen() is not 
declared in pswitch(). Eco treats pointers differently than integers. A return
value of a pointer comes back in a different register. Hence, you're getting
back a nonsense value from fopen() becuase the compiler is return an integer
and not a pointer.

Starting with V2.71 of the compiler, Tim has the Sys V function declarations
in the header files. You might check with Ecosoft about upgrading to the later
version.

-- 
Chris DeVoney				voice: 317/842-7162
Que Corporation				uucp:  ihnp4!inuxc!que!chris
Indianapolis, IN 

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