🚀 go-pugleaf

[I have removed comp.lang.fortran from the newsgroup list]

In article <1992Sep1.130600.25488@siia.mv.com> drd@siia.mv.com (David Dick) writes:
>In article <9224317.28165@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus James HENDERSON) writes:
>>Note that it makes sense to prevent users from redefining standard
>>library functions, because doing so could have all sorts of undesireable
>>side-effects.  [Example deleted]
>
>The fact that programmers who know what they're doing could no longer
>replace pieces of the libraries for debugging or *performance* reasons,
>was apparently of no consequence.
>
>IMHO, the "safety" provided by this reservation is far outweighed by
>the crippling of standard programming practice.

The Standardization of C had absolutely no effect on this aspect of the
language.

In Classic C, if you override a library function by a user-written function
of the same name, you get the expected results if you're "lucky", or if you
know enough about the implementation details to understand that it's safe.
The resulting program is not portable to an environment where the
implementation details are different.

In ANSI C, if you override a library function by a user-written function of
the same name, you have violated a constraint; hence you get the expected
results if you're "lucky", or if you know enough about the implementation
details to understand that it's safe.  The resulting program is not portable
to an environment where the implementation details are different.

The difference is that ANSI C explicitly documented something where Classic C
programmers had to rely on common sense.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (karl@ima.isc.com or uunet!ima!karl), The Walking Lint