Re: Pointers to "why C behaves like that ?"

Gayev.D.G. @mail.rsl.ru <dgàev@mail.ru> wrote :
....
> Of cause, the historical reasons also must be taken into
> account. Since the first "traditional" language (it was Algol-58,
> IMHO), the language designers decided what the forward declarations of
> variables is a good thing to have. IMHO, they are right :-) ...
> [Fortran and, debatably, Cobol preceded Algol-58. In Fortran, declarations
> are optional, in Cobol they're required. Fortran 77 added IMPLICIT NONE to
> let you turn off the automatic declarations. -John]


Although in Fortran you can omit the declaration only if or to the
extent the implicit one -- scalar or function with type determined by
the first letter of the identifier, or a called subroutine or
intrinsic, not array or any of the new F90+ features like ALLOCATABLE
-- is correct. Type of a variable is not implied, nor altered, by the
value(s) assigned, and a routine name has a single type and binding
except for intrinsics and in F90+ (explicitly) declared generics.


And for completeness as to the original question, in COBOL always and
Fortran when present the declarations precede code. Except that in
COBOL85 and F90+ entire nested subprograms (declarations AND code) may
follow the code of an outer subprogram. In PL/I also, as already
noted, declarations can be omitted if the default is correct, but if
present can occur anywhere even after reference; I don't recall seeing
any good use for this except nested PROCs.
--
- David.Thompson 1 now at worldnet.att.net

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