🚀 go-pugleaf

db3l@ans.net (David Bolen) writes:

RE:  ANSI Standard C library as an OS/2 DLL

 > I'm still not sure it's a feasible step.  There is normally a lot
 > of extra stuff in any particular "C library" that may or may not
 > translate among compilers.  You aren't always aware of it when
 > writing programs, but it's one of the reasons you can't just link
 > an Microsoft C object file with a Borland C library, for example.
 > And if we can't get normal library files that are interchangeable,
 > what are the odds of doing it as a DLL?
 >
 > Then there's the calling convention issue - some of the newer
 > compilers (or even older ones such as Watcom) do a lot of
 > optimization of the calling convention of functions unless you
 > explicitly ask for a standard C calling convention.  Since this can
 > significantly improve performance, would you be willing to give
 > that up to have a common C library DLL?  (I'm presuming that
 > different vendors will want to, or already do, optimize calls
 > differently)

No problem, as the OS/2 API demonstrates.  And the API could easily be
extended to include all ANSI Standard C library functions.  If
necessary, compiler vendors could include a small library to thunk to
the standard system library.  And compilers would still be free to
optimize performance with intrinsic (in-line) functions or with their
owm implementations of performance-sensitive functions.

 > ... how many OSes supply a C library that works with anything other
 > than the compiler that the vendor of the OS sells?  Sure, Sun and
 > IBM for example have shared C libraries that they supply with the
 > system, but GNU C for example comes with its own library anyway.

A poor implementation perhaps?  ;-)

Best regards,
John