"Funny" names in programs (BLISS lexical functions)

[Geoff Kuenning]

In article <248 at decwrl.UUCP> ddb at mrvax.DEC (DAVID DYER-BENNET) writes:

>BLISS has had a cleaner way to handle this for some
>time:  it has a lexical function %name(), which causes its string
>argument to be treated as a name regardless of the normal naming rules.
>...
>BLISS has a lot of other useful lexical functions also.  In fact it
>makes the C pre-processor look pretty dull by comparison.  Consider:
>[long list of functions]

This is interesting;  I'd known of these at one time and forgotten them.
Some of them aren't appropriate to C, but I think we should take a long look
at them with a view to extending the defined(x)/undefined(x) stuff that the
current preprocessor takes.  Mind you, I'm not suggesting hacking these onto
the standard--the standard is too far along with that.  But I'd like to see
some experimental compilers with some of this stuff.
-- 

	Geoff Kuenning
	...!ihnp4!trwrb!desint!geoff