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: C compiler ignors CTRL L Message-ID: <4422@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Fri, 5-Oct-84 12:01:33 EDT Article-I.D.: utzoo.4422 Posted: Fri Oct 5 12:01:33 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 5-Oct-84 12:01:33 EDT References: <4006@elsie.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 24 > Our C compiler (4.1 BSD) will ignor CTRL L's (form feeds). This is nice > because it allows one to ask for a new page at the begining of subroutines. > It is also not documented, probably non-standard, and probably should be an > error. How far back does this "feature" go? Is it in all, most, of just a > few of the compilers out there. If it is universal, shouldn't it be > documented? ANSI C draft of 21 Aug 1984, section 2.0: "Space characters, horizontal tabs, new-lines, vertical tabs, form feeds, and comments ... -- collectively called *white space* -- are ignored except as they serve to separate tokens." So this particular feature can be assumed to be legitimate in future C compilers. Unfortunately, K&R's list of white-space characters is not as long, and does *not* include formfeed, so there are probably a good many current compilers out there that won't like it. On the other hand, simply removing all the formfeeds in a file is easy with any text editor worthy of the name, so it doesn't seem like a big stumbling block to portability. If you really want to be 100% portable with current compilers, put /* */ around the formfeeds. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry