Re: Defining polymorphism vs. overloading

Are the square braces in C polymorphic or overloaded? Which term should be
used? I am no expert, but my personal opinion is NEITHER. As a programmer
who has just begun delving into the mysteries of compiler construction, I
prefer to think of the square braces as a SHORTHAND NOTATION which is expanded
by the preprocessor (even though the preprocessor doesn't). So I imagine that
every expression of the form


myarray[index]


is silently transformed into


*(myarray+index)


before the compiler even sees it. Even though it probably doesn't happen
this way for most compilers, this fictional device lets me ignore questions
of polymorphism and operator overloading in a non-object-oriented language
such as C.


Mark Montague
plph@caen.engin.umich.edu
[In the C compilers I've seen subscripts are turned into the intermediate code
equivalent of *(a+b) very early in the compiler, typically as the intermediate
form is being built. -John]
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