Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!sugar!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: intrinsic functions, math operators (was: i++, i+=1, i=i+1)
Message-ID: <1554@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 20 Sep 88 14:18:31 GMT
References: <1531@ficc.uu.net> <3748@lanl.gov>
Organization: SCADA
Lines: 33

In article <3748@lanl.gov>, jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
> From article <1531@ficc.uu.net>, by peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva):
> > This is not true. Just because something in 'C' has the form of a function
> > does not mean it is forced to be a function:

> > 	getchar()
> > 	min()/max() on many machines
> > 	feof()
> > 	isprint()
> > 

> This is one of the reasons that C is less portable than Fortran.  The set
> of intrinsic functions is not defined anywhere.

And it shouldn't be.

> I may indeed want to write
> my own versions of some of the above functions (add pow() to the list).

So #undef them.

> > This syntax is, however, not the one Fortran uses. The mathematical syntax
> > for exponentiation is actually not displayable in ASCII text.

> That is _not_ a valid argument for omitting exponentiation as an operator.

No, and I'm not saying it is. What I'm saying is that just because something
is an operator in mathematics doesn't mean it has to be one in any given
programming language. What about integration, differentiation, and so on?
There's even a syntax for differentiation that is expressable in ASCII.
-- 
Peter da Silva  `-_-'  Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
"Have you hugged  U  your wolf today?"            peter@ficc.uu.net