Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!hc!lanl!jlg
From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: `intrinsic' functions in forthcoming C standard
Message-ID: <4030@lanl.gov>
Date: 22 Sep 88 18:35:13 GMT
References: <13681@mimsy.UUCP>
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 24

From article <13681@mimsy.UUCP>, by chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek):
> Essentially, what the dpANS says is that if you, the programmer, write
> your own version of the `library' functions, you have not written a
> strictly conforming program, and a compiler that produces absolute
> values even though your `fabs' produces `fabulously signed' numbers is
> still correct.  [...]

This is _exactly_ what I meant when I said that the new standard was
declaring some functions to be intrinsics.  The are making a list of
functions which the user cannot redefine in a portably reliable way.
The compiler (or some other tool on the p[ath) is allowed to treat
these functions in a different way - and users who try the redefine
these are doing something non-standard.  

This is also exactly what I said was _desireable_ for the committee
to do.  It spells out explicitly which functions cannot be redefined
so that the user can write portable code (by avoiding those names).
The old de-facto C standard was not as portable because of this omission.

Why is it when I say something, every jumps down my throat.  When someone
else says the _same_ thing it's greeted as a 'true revelation'.

J. Giles
Los Alamos