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From: Opus <ifonly@youknew.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: question about linker
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2024 02:39:22 +0100
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On 04/12/2024 22:01, Bart wrote:
> On 04/12/2024 19:47, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>> On 04.12.2024 13:08, David Brown wrote:
> 
>>> Sure.  And it is certainly /possible/ to know all the small details of C
>>> without ever reading the standards.  But it's quite unlikely.
>>
>> The question is (IMO) not so much to know "all" and even "all small"
>> details. Even in a language like "C" (that I'd consider to be fairly
>> incoherent if compared to other languages' design) you can get all
>> "important" language properties (including details) from textbooks.
>>
>> If cases where that is different, the standards documents - which
>> have their very own special way of being written - would be even
>> less comprehensibly as they (inherently) already are. - That said
>> from a programmer's POV (not from the language implementors').
>>
>> I look into language standards only if I want to confirm/falsify
>> an implementation; in this case I'm taking the role of a language
>> implementor (not a programmer). Personally I do that anyway only
>> rarely, for specific languages only, and just out of academical
>> interest.
>>
>>> [...]
>>> Bart is an expert at thinking up things in C that confuse him.
>>
>> Well, that's an own topic. - Where I was really astonished was the
>> statement of being confused about the braces/semicolons, which is
>> so fundamental (and primitive) but technically just a detail that
>> I'd thought it should be clear
> 
> 
> OK, if it's so simple, explain it to me.
> 
> Apparently the first line here needs a semicolon after }, the second 
> doesn't:
> 
>    int X[1] = {0};
>    void Y() {}
> 
> Similarly here:
> 
>    if (x) y;
>    if (x) {}
> 
> Why?
> 
> "Because that's what the grammar says" isn't a valid answer.
> 
> The C language is one of the most quirky ones around full of apparently 
> ridiculous things. Why shouldn't you be able to write this for example:
> 
>     {
>     ....
>     L:
>     }
> 
> This stupid rule means that EVERY label in my generated code needs to be 
> written as L:; instead of just L:
> 
> Please don't say the label is only defined to be a prefix to another 
> statement. I asking why it was done like that.

- It's reasonable not to require a semicolon (which is a statement 
termination) to terminate a statement block, which is terminated by the 
closing brace. A semicolon would be redundant.

- For labels, I agree, but the deeper issue is not that; it's to have 
goto's when better constructs would be the fix.