In article <2118 at bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi at bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>In article <241 at oracle.UUCP> rbradbur at oracle.UUCP (Robert Bradbury) writes:
>>On another note; does everyone realize that the current standard allows
>>the results of the str/memcmp() function to be implementation defined
>>if the characters being compared have the high-bit set?
>
>You mean that I can have two identical strings with high bits set, and
>strcmp() could return something other than 0? This would be truly a
>serious flaw in the standard.
The purpose of this would be to allow the use of the "alternate" character
set (= codes > 127) to be used for international language applications.
Languages which have more than 26 alpha characters need the upper half
of the eight-bit code range to implement their languages, and in that
case ignoring the 8th bit would be very counter-productive.
>Or does the problem lie only in deciding lexical order? That's not so
>bad--I wouldn't trust the standard library in that case anyway, since
>we all have our own opinions about what lexical order is correct.
Similarly, we all have our own opinions about how many unique characters
should be available -- limiting the number to 128 is more restrictive
than necessary, so I think the standard is appropriate.
>While we're on the subject, just what is the meaning of "implementation-
>defined"? E.g., "Oh, by the way, I would avoid comparing strings
>with high bits set, since the result is implementation-defined. On
>this particular system the result is that all disk packs are erased and
>the system halts."
Hardly. Compiler implementors do want to sell more than a few copies
of their product, and such behaviour would not be conducive to that goal :-)
>--
>Rahul Dhesi UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!dhesi
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--
Wolf N. Paul Phone: (214) 306-9101 (h) (214) 404-8077 (w)
3387 Sam Rayburn Run UUCP: ihnp4!killer!{dcs, doulos}!wnp
Carrollton, TX 75007 INTERNET: wnp at dcs.UUCP ESL: 62832882
Pat Robertson does NOT speak for all evangelical Christians--not for me, anyway!