Standard Compatibility [was: Re: New Alpha]_(re)

Thu, 03 Apr 1997 20:14:00 +0200

Phil Nelson wrote:
> 
> >Although gpc ain't a commercial product it should be build on wide
> >acceptance.
> 
> I agree.
> 

> >In past nobody was interested in any pascal-standards but Borland.
> I disagree.  Borland did not write ISO 7185 and 10206.  If they did,
> those standards would look a lot different.  Units would be part of
> the standard, which they are not.
> 
> >Borland-Pascal IMHO is the standard-pascal anyway.
> I disagree.

I didn't mean Borland wrote that standards - sorry for the inexactitude
- 
but Heimsoeth made the first real working and usable compiler for dos 
platfrom (which had an overwhelming piece of market of about 85% of 
personal computers that day). Computers and therefore they established 
a "quasi"-pascal-standard. That IS and WILL BE my opinion and reason
because doesn't release Quick-Pascal any- or Visiual-Pascal furthermore.
(Congratulations Borland)

> >gpc really shall default to borland/turbo-pascal behaviour. You could
> I disagree.

Clearly from context: not for standardization reasons; but for reasons
of
portability.
 
> I did like the suggestion that gpc could be started from several links,
> gpc (ie. ISO standard Pascal/ISO Extended Pascal) and bpc (Borland Pascal).
> I do believe that gpc should support(emulate) Borland Pascal to support
> Borland Pascal users.  But gpc should not standardly be Borland.

gpc ain't borland pascal guy, but remember:
people use borland, borland is habitual, schools teach borland.

> >give somthing like
> >
> >"i=             7 ?"
> 
> Because that is how a majority of Pascal compilers do it.  

But the majority is using borland and therefore this behaviour IS NOT
USUAL for the majority of programmers, source-code-programs etc.pp.
Maybe it is for YOU and YOUR compiler.

> And to ask a furthur question, why should
> {-------------snip--------------}
> for i := 1 to 5 do write(a[i]);
> writeln;
> {-------------snip--------------}
> produce output for which you can not distinguish the elements of a?
> 
> >nb. The Borland Pascal behaviour conforms to ISO 10206 too. How about
> Are your sure about this?  Full Extended Pascal?  From my exprience,

We are talking about the default behaviour. i.e. the parameter next to 
double-dot is missing. And we are talking abount write(integer), aren't
we? 

Cutting strings is a completely different case, because 'write(s:x)' 
with length(s)>x does really make sense only if the string is cutted.

> it violates 6.10.3.6.  (and 6.9.3.6 in ISO 7185.)  If there is a way
> to make it not violate the above quoted paragraphs, I'd really like
> to know how.

You are right, but declaring Default-TotalWidth(integer)=0 (or 1)
conforms 
to 6.10.3.3, the output will be a left aligned number, so we can beat
"quasi" borland-compatibility and your need of standard-conformance.
Once again: WHY NOT, why should it be defined to 5, 8, 10 or whatever 
value you want? from 6.10.3.1 "the default values shall be
implementation-
defined", perhaps gpc will be an implementation on it's own. Not
conforming 
to Borland, USCD, IBM-Pascal or whatsoever.

> --
> Phil Nelson                       NetBSD: http://www.netbsd.org
> e-mail: phil@cs.wwu.edu           LPF: http://www.lpf.org
> http://www.cs.wwu.edu/~phil       !gifs: http://www.lpf.org/Patent/Gif/Gif.html

=================================================================
Sven Engelhardt
http://www.sax.net/                              mailto:se@sik.de

Sven Engelhardt (sven@sik.de)