🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4e17uk$g3@kocrsv08.delcoelect.com>, c2xrfs@eng.delcoelect.com (Richard F. Smiley) writes:
>Specifically, should the three-character sequence  "& ="  be
>treated as representing the two-character operator  "&="?  

Assuming this is in the main C language (i.e. after preprocessing has been
done, and not inside a string literal or anything), I think that any program
containing the three-character sequence "& =" must have a syntax error.
Every conforming implementation must issue a diagnostic.

>However, a compiler I respect instead treats this as a legal fragment
>involving the "&=" operator.  Is that allowed?  (The program fragment
>was caused by a bad macro definition.  If the compiler had complained,
>we would have found the problem earlier.)

In addition to issuing a diagnostic, the implementation is free to do
whatever else it likes, such as pretending it was the two-character
operator "&=".  Furthermore, the diagnostic doesn't have to be accurate or
meaningful.  If the implementation issues any diagnostic at all, for example
a warning about some other part of the program, or a warning saying that
the implementation doesn't try very hard, then it meets the requirement.

If the implementation issued no diagnostic at all about your program,
and if you invoked the implementation according to the vendor's instructions
for a conforming implementation, then I'd say you're entitled to a refund.
In any case, you can consider not buying anything further from that vendor.
The marketplace speaks louder than the standard, and on rare occasions
quality speaks too.
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