Compiler Specific Operators

[ark at alice.UUCP]

>	What do people think about allowing compilers to have their own
> compiler/machine specific operators, in a standardized format.  I think
> it might be very useful to allow a compiler to have a non-portable operator
> to do something that might be very efficient in machine code, but is not 
> provided for by C.  

> I propose that the standardized format $op-name$ be used for these operators.

C already has a hook for such things.  It's called the "asm" statement.
Despite its name, there is no law that says that what follows "asm"
must in fact be assembly language.  If you're writing the compiler,
you can implement whatever syntax you like with whatever semantics you like.