Thread View: comp.std.c++
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Started by Michael J. Vilot
Sat, 18 Aug 1990 01:30
Re: Questions on the evolving standard.
Author: Michael J. Vilot
Date: Sat, 18 Aug 1990 01:30
Date: Sat, 18 Aug 1990 01:30
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Ron Guilmette (after a brief hiatus while he changed jobs) asks: > The biggest thing that seems to be left unspecified in > E&S is the whole subject of standard libraries and header files. Are > there any? Welcome back, Ron. The X3J16 committee has set up several working groups to address the various aspects of the standard. The standard will contain a library chapter, and there is a working group addressing the library's contents. We've had a fun time discussing the hundreds of things that might be in that library. James Coggins, Keith Gorlen, Doug Lea, and others have contributed some good ideas. We've also been reminded that there is only so much time available, and only so much we can mandate in a standard that all vendors claiming compliance have to implement. So, our focus is on the classes that ``everyone agrees'' will be widely used and generally helpful. An initial classification is: 1. C++ language support (new.h, etc.) 2. compatibility with the C library 3. streams 4. everything else We're trying to get some specific proposals on the first three by the November meeting in San Francisco. Jerry Schwarz is working on a simplified version of iostreams as a basis for the streams discussions. The easy part seems to be suggesting classes and sketching out the basic functionality of them. The hard part is working out the details. We have some difficult issues in getting mixed-vendor C and C++ implementations working together, and a challenging name space management problem (both with file names and global names) when combining C and C++ libraries. We could use a healthy discussion here, especially from those of you who have successfully coped with these issues. -- Mike Vilot, ObjectWare Inc, Nashua NH mjv@objects.mv.com (UUCP: ...!decvax!zinn!objects!mjv)
Re: Questions on the evolving standard.
Author: Ron Guilmette
Date: Sat, 18 Aug 1990 16:37
Date: Sat, 18 Aug 1990 16:37
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In article <866@zinn.MV.COM> mjv@objects.mv.com (Michael J. Vilot) writes:
>
>The X3J16 committee has set up several working groups to address the
>various aspects of the standard. The standard will contain a library
>chapter, and there is a working group addressing the library's contents.
...
>So, our focus is on the classes that ``everyone agrees'' will be widely
>used and generally helpful. An initial classification is:
>
> 1. C++ language support (new.h, etc.)
> 2. compatibility with the C library
> 3. streams
> 4. everything else
When you say `compatability with THE C LIBRARY' I'm left wondering. Which
C library? POSIX?
Regarless of which C library we are talking about, several additional
questions arise:
What about the types for arguments which are pointers? Many of
these could (in theory) be declared as pointer-to-const. Will
they be?
What about error conditions in C library functions? Are we gonna
stick with NULL or -1 return values and errno, or will there
perhaps be `shells' around the C library functions which could
return such error indicators such that these shells turn errno
values into raised exceptions?
What about groups of functions that operate on particular types
of objects? Will these end up getting `objectified'? For example:
class DIR {
// ...
public:
opendir (...);
closedir (...);
readdir (...);
telldir (...);
//...
};
--
// Ron Guilmette - C++ Entomologist
// Internet: rfg@ncd.com uucp: ...uunet!lupine!rfg
// Motto: If it sticks, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.
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