Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: Variable length argument list handling Message-ID: <10775@smoke.BRL.MIL> Date: 18 Aug 89 21:50:51 GMT References: <1441@esunix.UUCP> Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. Lines: 16 In article <1441@esunix.UUCP> bjones@esunix.UUCP (Ben Jones) writes: -Question: Why can't a C function which allows a variable number of -arguments find out how many arguments were actually passed? ... -ANSI C does not change any of the function calling conventions. It -cannot or else existing function libraries would be invalidated when -switching to ANSI C. You answered your own question. -Therefore, it would appear that the best way to get the length of -the argument list is to add a new reserved word to the language to -handle variable parameter lists. X3J11 thought that the best way was to give a function that needed that information an extra parameter containing it, when you design its interface.