I can't find a good definition anywhere...

[Karl Heuer]

(Followups to comp.std.c; this is not a unix question.)

This guy walks into a bar with 500 #pragma's.  In article <2810 at buengc.BU.EDU>
the bartender says,
>What does a #pragma _do_, anyway?

So the guy says, "Anything it wants!"
(With apologies to any 500# gorillas in the audience.)

Seriously, though, #pragma is the universal escape to allow implementors to
do the sorts of things that they just *have* to add to the language (e.g.
`#module' or `#ident'), in such a way that it won't interfere with other ANSI-
conforming implementations.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl at haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint
(Oh, wow!  I actually used `#' as a pound sign!)