🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug18.195516.24881@bnr.ca> davisonj@bnr.ca (John Davison) writes:
>        I asked this question before, and no one answered.  Here it comes
>again.  Surely one of you readers knows the answer!

Well, since none of the X3J11 experts chimed in the first time, I'll give
it a shot (note that my information is mostly based on my memory from past
postings in this newsgroup).

>        Despite the differences in wording and formatting, are _ISO/IEC_
>_9899:1990_(E),_First_Edition_1990-12-15_ and _American_National_Standard_
>_X3.159-1989_ different in any way with respect to the language specifications
>or implications thereof?

No.  ISO took the ANSI spec, removed the Rationale (which was non-binding
information), reformatted it according to their standards (for instance, I
think they removed the line numbers), and published it.  The sentences that
describe C are all the same as in the ANSI spec, but the look is different.

At the time it was being proposed as an ISO standard there was some concern
that changes might be made, but it never happened (it would have been
virtually impossible for the two standards to come out only a year apart if
any technical changes had been made, as the design and review process would
have taken longer than that -- there are shortcuts that can only be taken
when an approved national standard is being promoted to an international
standard).

>        Do these two documents represent the most current and widespread C
>standard(s)?

They are the only official standards for the C language in existence.  Most
vendors implementing C compilers for the last few years have been basing
them on this standard.

In addition, many vendors have also been implementing C++, a derivative of
C with a number of extensions, such as object-oriented functions, function
name overloading, generic templates, and condition handling.  There is a de
facto standard at the moment ("The Annotated C++ Reference Manual"), and
X3J16 is in the process of developing an ANSI standard for it.

-- 
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com          {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar