Compile-time switches (was: Standard Compatibility)

Sat, 5 Apr 1997 14:37:17 +0200 (MET DST)

According to Nils Bokermann:
> 
> [...]
>
> I don't like the idea of a local (user) configuration file as GPC.CFG or
> .gpcrc. There is a way of doing it in a makefile. If someone _needs_ a compiler
> which is a borland like compiler for standard, might there be a compile-time
> switch? Let's consider something like 
> ./configure --try-to-be-a-borland-compiler or 
> ./configure --use-standard-pascal.

What's wrong about symbolic links `spc', `epc', `bpc' to `gpc' which make
GPC strictly comply to Standard Pascal, Extended Pascal, or Borlnand
Pascal (by passing the run-time parameters `--standard-pascal' etc.)?
A compile-time switch would cause *much* more trouble than that.

As I wrote earlier, I have the impression that most people do neither
want a strinct ISO Pascal compiler nor a perfect Borland Pascal emulator,
but they want an improved compiler with many extensions, BASED ON THEIR
FAVOURITE COMPILER.  This is

  * impossible,

  * but reality.

Up to now, the default field width is the only case where Borland and
ISO (more exactly: a de-facto standard based on ISO) really contradict.
In all other cases Borland Pascal and ISO Pascal can peacefully coexist in
one and the same compiler - which has of course to identify the dialect
from the context.

ONLY such cases with a REAL contradiction can, IMHO, justify a
compile-time switch.  And even here I am not sure ...

Yours,

    Peter

  Dipl.-Phys. Peter Gerwinski, Essen, Germany, free physicist and programmer
peter.gerwinski@uni-essen.de - http://home.pages.de/~peter.gerwinski/ [970201]
 maintainer GNU Pascal [970401] - http://home.pages.de/~gnu-pascal/ [970125]

Peter Gerwinski (peter@agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de)