Undelivered mail

[MAILER%ALASKA.BITNET at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU]

Subject:  Re: ANSI C & Fortran 8x - Expand cpp to partially support

[Non-Deliverable:  User does not exist or has never logged on]

Reply-To: Info-C at BRL.ARPA

Received: From UWAVM(MAILER) by ALASKA with Jnet id 1162
          for SXJVK at ALASKA; Sun, 13 Mar 88 06:14 AST
Received: by UWAVM (Mailer X1.25) id 7065; Sun, 13 Mar 88 07:13:34 PST
Date:         Sat, 12 Mar 88 17:41:08 GMT
Reply-To:     Info-C at BRL.ARPA
Sender:       Info-C List <INFO-C at NDSUVM1>
From:         Alan J Rosenthal <flaps at dgp.toronto.EDU>
Subject:      Re: ANSI C & Fortran 8x - Expand cpp to partially support
              generalized precision
Comments: To: info-c at BRL-SMOKE.arpa
To:           Vic Kapella <SXJVK at ALASKA>


[In editing David Hough's article below, I have taken representative
 paragraphs.  -ajr]

In article <44981 at sun.uucp> dgh%dgh at Sun.COM (David Hough) writes:
>Comment #26, Section 3.8.8 and 2.2.4.2: predefine generalized precision macros
>...
>__int__(p) is evaluated to the name of the smallest signed int type
>that contains all the signed p-digit integers, i. e. the interval
>[-(10**p)+1,10**p-1].
>...

Useable but not very useful.  Also not sufficiently well defined.  What
is its value for p > log10(LONG_MAX)?  Also, your macros are very
different from all other preprocessing macros in that they don't simply
substitute to a string (with possible replacements from the arguments).
Also also, nowhere else does the preprocessor know about names of types.

>__INTEGER__(p) is evaluated to the Fortran name of the type corresponding
>to __int__(p), or to INTEGER if no Fortran compiler is supported.
>...

Since no Fortran compiler is supported by the ANSI C standard, you
can just say "INTEGER".  The C standard does not mandate a separate
preprocessor, nor should it.  That would be the domain of a
Preprocessor Standard.  It seems like that is what you are proposing.
Perhaps you should write one, or get someone else to write one.

ajr
--
If you had eternal life, would you be able to say all the integers?