Re: problems with identifiers and keywords...

Louis Krupp wrote:


> The author of the program might even come to find the program
> awkward after learning more of the language and recognizing more of
> the keywords as keywords.


The same applies to compilers, those learn new keywords from time to
time, too. :) It happened to X11 headers written for C originally,
used in C++, which has 'class' as keyword. New compilers couldn't
parse old files.


In the X11 headers, that field is called 'class' when using C, and
called 'c_class' when using C++.


X11/Xutil.h:
      typedef struct {
          Visual *visual;
          VisualID visualid;
          int screen;
          int depth;
      #if defined(__cplusplus) || defined(c_plusplus)
          int c_class; /* C++ */
      #else
          int class;
      #endif
          unsigned long red_mask;
          unsigned long green_mask;


Might be that allowing 'class' as identifier in non keyword context
would provide full backward compatibility. I do not know if it would be
worth it, thought.


--
Gracjan

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.