Reserved names in ANSI C

[Blair P. Houghton]

In article <1989Jul1.234330.28732 at utzoo.uucp> henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <461 at algor2.UUCP> jeffrey at algor2.UUCP (Jeffrey Kegler) writes:
>>Whose linker was this, anyway, that we are going to spend the next two
>>decades wrecking our code for?
>
>Any linker that supports the bare minimum for FORTRAN.  There are more
>such linkers in the world than you'd think.

Which begs the question:  how difficult is it to have standard-conforming
implementations implement a linker that handles a larger name space?

(Yeah, I know.  C is not a linker, so the linker is beyond the scope of the
standard.  So, too, was once the library...)

Corrollarily, ("corrollarily"? :) how hard is it to increase the
external identifier size allowed by a linker?  (Actually, it should have
been "lemmatically," but the chronology is bass-ackwards...)

>> (Couldn't the ANSI C committee have
>>found a linker somewhere that was restricted to 5 characters...
>
>Can you say "Data General"?  I knew you could! :-)

Say it?  I can SEE it, if I walk downstairs.

				--Blair
				  "Although it's been a long
				   time since the DG has seen
				   mobile electrons, apparently..."