Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!guido
From: guido@cwi.nl (Guido van Rossum)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Goin' Crazy on a Mac, or, How I Love MPW "GlobalData"
Message-ID: <306@piring.cwi.nl>
Date: 8 May 88 11:32:44 GMT
References: <8816@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> <7327@drutx.ATT.COM> <23952@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: guido@cwi.nl (Guido van Rossum)
Organization: The Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Amoebae
Lines: 23

In article <23952@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP
(David Phillip Oster) writes:
>In article <7327@drutx.ATT.COM> clive@drutx.ATT.COM (Clive Steward) writes:
>>for this.  In particular, the very useful program generators yacc and
>>lex generate data arrays, which are used for finite state machines.
>
>So, write the data arrays to a resource using a tool. [...]
>Sure it is a pain that the compiler didn't do it for you,
>but when the workaround takes one line, why bitch?

Aren't we exaggerating a bit, Mr. Oster?  The generators mentioned
produce their output as C code (mostly data initializations), so how do
you suggest we create the resource in the first place?  It has to be run
through a compiler at some point...  Sure, the code generated is simple
in structure so we could scan it by other means, but then it's no longer
a one-liner, is it?

The real problem here is not to get data loaded into your program (your
trick dies just fine) but to translate a *large* initialized data
statement into bits.
--
Guido van Rossum, Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI), Amsterdam
guido@piring.cwi.nl or mcvax!piring!guido or guido%piring.cwi.nl@uunet.uu.net