Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: net.lang.c Subject: Re: 6 char externs and the ANSI standard Message-ID: <4439@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Wed, 10-Oct-84 14:45:15 EDT Article-I.D.: utzoo.4439 Posted: Wed Oct 10 14:45:15 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 10-Oct-84 14:45:15 EDT References: <50@ism780b.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 27 > How can you talk about portability when you consider the large number of > existing otherwise portable programs this would break? The standard should > protect the large number of existing programs, and demand that implementors > deal with it. Protecting implementors with weak linkers but screwing existing > code is not the greatest good for the greatest number. One of the ANSI committee's basic goals is the protection of existing *correct* code. Note that the previous de facto standard, K&R, quite explicitly specified an 8-character limit. Pre-ANSI code which depends on long names is not portable, regardless of fraudulent claims to the contrary by Berklocentric implementors. Don't get me wrong; I am entirely in favor of long names, and I tend to agree with the suggestion that the 6-character limit on significance of external names should be listed as a "subset" feature. But people who wrote long-name programs long before there was any standard along those lines, and then had the gall to call them "portable", have no cause to complain about portability problems. *MOST* existing C programs were written in environments with a 7-character limit or something similar. -- "Yes, Virginia, there is life outside Berkeley." Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry