#pragma does only half the job (was Re: Pragma and noalias)

[T. William Wells]

In article <1988Jul22.172848.6344 at utzoo.uucp> henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
: In article <502 at proxftl.UUCP> bill at proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) writes:
: > [I defend my interpretation of the #pragma]
:
: [He says that my interpretation is based on circular logic and context
: dropping].
:
:                      There isn't any way out of it; the (draft) standard
: simply does not tell you whether #pragma is allowed to change the rest of
: the language or not.

I have come to the conclusion that the language used is sufficiently
ambiguous to permit either my or your interpretation, I have to agree
with your final statement.  This means that there is no further point
in discussion as the difference is one of preference rather than one
which can be decided by reference to the standard.

As a final note, I much prefer an interpretation of pragma that says
that it a) may change the behavior of the implementation in any way
that leaves it still conforming, or b) makes assertions about the
program which the implementation may assume to be true.

This is weaker (read: permits more) than the my interpretation of the
standard but stronger than yours.  In any case, the language ought to
be clarified for the next edition.