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 needs BCD (ANSI People: Please Listen) Message-ID: <4515@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Mon, 22-Oct-84 14:31:16 EDT Article-I.D.: utzoo.4515 Posted: Mon Oct 22 14:31:16 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 22-Oct-84 14:31:16 EDT References: <218@x.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 15 > Unfortunately, C does not give a programmer access to the BCD machine > instructions offered by most modern computers/microprocessors. It doesn't give you access to lots of other interesting instructions, either. There's no way to exploit string instructions in C, for example, without either a *smart* optimizing compiler or an interface that at least looks like a function call. Strings strike me as a much bigger issue than BCD arithmetic, and they have many of the same problems, too; if C isn't going to do anything sexy about strings [for the record, I am opposed to any attempt to do so, on the grounds that it's too big a change and too difficult], then there really isn't any reason to single out BCD for special treatment. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry