🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4j3p80INN567@keats.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca>
           c2a192@ugrad.cs.ubc.ca "Kazimir Kylheku" writes:

> >interfacing with a file system, or manipluating strings, etc.   I didn't
> >think of the library as a formal part of the C language.   Now, of course
> 
> Neither does the K&R2: this I think is a major flaw in the otherwise great
> book. It never makes clear the concept that the standard library is a component
> of the language. In fact, it claims the opposite:
> 
>         The standard library is not part of the C language proper, but an
>         environment that supports standard C will provide the function
>         declarations and type and macro definitions of this library.
>         (beginning of Appendix B).
> 
> Not at all; that's the beauty of it! All of the standard library functions can
> be implemented by essentially adding a compatible library and headers to a
> ``freestanding'' implementation. The standard doesn't _require_ that you inline
> any of the functions or that the compiler be aware of special semantics, but
> the implementor has the freedom to do this. This is why the inclusion of
> appropriate headers is still required when you use standard functions---for
> example, you must include <stdlib.h> to call malloc(), or <stdio.h> to use
> printf().  If the compiler were really required to know malloc or printf a
> priori, the need for a header file could easily have been dropped long ago.

Surely you have just proved that the standard library is _not_ part of the
C language.  At the risk of seeming -pedantic, I would say that the standard
library is a part of the _standard C *implementation*_, but not a part of
the standard C *language*.

That is why you can build the standard library within C -- you cannot write
the entire standard library using the standard library, therefore if the
standard library is a part of the C language, then the standard library is
no longer written in the C language, but only a limited subset thereof.

I hope you understood that, I half expected to end up mentioning an index of
everything that is not indexed... ;-)

.splitbung
-- 
* TQ 1.0 * The 'Just So Quotes'.
Artificial Intelligence: the art of making computers that behave like the 
ones in movies.
	-- Bill Bulko