Microsoft C ABS (Personal summary)

[Alastair Dallas]

In response to a question about Microsoft C generating a tricky inline
abs() function, I pulled up a copy of MSC and found that a straightforward
library routine was generated, instead.  I also questioned the ethics of
asking for reverse-engineered source code in the first place.

Several other posters found the trick code by turning optimization on and
reported it to the net.  The ethics question is apparently moot because
Microsoft itself had published the trick earlier.

My apologies for my previous, essentially no-op, posting.  I am posting
this summary for the benefit of a particularly rude email'er who implied
that dBASE suffers from my failure to turn on optimization.  dBASE IV
was not compiled using Microsoft C, therefore this fellow willl have to
think of some other basis for his unspecified criticism of one of the
most popular application programs ever written.

/alastair/

Disclaimer: The usual.  My opinions.  No one else's.  Just mine.