🚀 go-pugleaf

hjp@wsrdb.wsr.ac.at (Peter Holzer) writes:
>D might be an embedded system which cannot produce a header file

*Argh*.  I forgot about that possibility.  Thank you for pointing it out.

I used to have a .signature "the longer I use C, the better I like Ada."

Seriously, I would _much_ rather the C9X committee spent a lot of effort
trying to solve the "environment enquiry" and "type selection" problems
than copying things from C++.  The last time I looked, C++ still hadn't
solved those problems itself.

Type selection problem:
    I need a signed integral type that can hold a certain range of numbers.
    How do I ask for that _portably_?
	Yes, I know I can use the standard-guaranteed limits to get a type
	which is guaranteed to be big enough, but it might be inefficient.
	What's more, if the bounds of the type are _computed_ the actual
	bounds may vary from installation to installation.
	Imagine something like signed<LowExpr, HighExpr>.

    I need an unsigned integral type that can hold a certain range of numbers.
    How do I ask for that _portably_?
	Same problems.  Imagine unsigned<MaxExpr>.

    I need a floating point type with a certain precision and/or a certain
    range.  How do I ask for that _portably_?
	float<X,Y> meaning a floating point type that can represent both
	X and Y as distinct values would do the job.

    How can I solve these problems without a tangle of bizarre syntax?
    The samples above use C++-like notation FAMILY<e1,...,en> meaning the
    "cheapest" member of the family that can represent all the listed
    numbers distinctly.  We still need a way to say optimise for time/
    optimise for space/use exactly N bits, but _please_ let's not have as
    much syntax as recent proposals here have suggested.

Environment enquiry problem:
    I have a type, or a variable of that type.
    How do I find out its properties _portably_?
    This includes but is not limited to things like minimum value, maximum
    value, printf format, scanf format, number of bits, representation (is
    it 2s-comp, 1s-comp, sign-and-magnitude, ieee 754, whatever), and how
    do I do this WITHOUT cluttering up the name space with a huge number of
    special values.


-- 
"conventional orthography is ... a near optimal system for the
 lexical representation of English words." Chomsky & Halle, S.P.E.
Richard A. O'Keefe; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/~ok; RMIT Comp.Sci.