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From: john@basser.oz (John Mackin)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Is this correct action for the c compiler/preprocessor ??
Message-ID: <473@basser.oz>
Date: Sat, 2-Nov-85 15:11:48 EST
Article-I.D.: basser.473
Posted: Sat Nov  2 15:11:48 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 4-Nov-85 01:43:43 EST
References: <8510301207.AA27158@ucbvax.berkeley.edu> <270@cornell.UUCP>
Reply-To: john@basser.oz (John Mackin)
Organization: Dept. of Comp. Science, Uni of Sydney, Australia
Lines: 22
Summary: Read the book next time!

In article <270@cornell.UUCP> jqj@cornell.UUCP (J Q Johnson) writes:

> Most versions of pcc ignore stringness (``"'') when looking for tokens 
> for macro replacement.
> [ ... ]
> K&R are silent on the lexical issues involved, so this cannot be considered
> incorrect.

I couldn't let such a glaring misstatement pass.  Page 207, sec. 12.1:

	``Text inside a string or a character constant is not
	  subject to replacement.''

Disclaimer: I personally think that the book is *wrong* on this point,
as evidence the fact that DMR's own original PDP-11 C system did do
such substituion.  I take issue here only with the fact that Mr.
Johnson has misrepresented the book's position.

John Mackin, Basser Department of Computer Science,
	     University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

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