boolean values and the FAQ

[jacob navia]

The section about boolean values should mention
<stdbool.h> at least. It is still at the C89 stage...
(Section 9)

[Dan Pop]

In <cd**********@news-reader2.wanadoo.fr> "jacob navia" <ja***@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes:

The section about boolean values should mention
<stdbool.h> at least. It is still at the C89 stage...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So is the C programming community at large.

Dan
--
Dan Pop
DESY Zeuthen, RZ group
Email: Da*****@ifh.de

[jacob navia]

"Dan Pop" <Da*****@cern.ch> a écrit dans le message de
news:cd**********@sunnews.cern.ch...

In <cd**********@news-reader2.wanadoo.fr> "jacob navia" <ja***@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes:

The section about boolean values should mention
<stdbool.h> at least. It is still at the C89 stage...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So is the C programming community at large.

So what?

The current standard is C99. Period.

The FAQ should mention the current version of the standard.
I am not advocating dropping all references to C89, but the
current standard should be mentioned.

[Dan Pop]

In <cd**********@news-reader1.wanadoo.fr> "jacob navia" <ja***@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes:

"Dan Pop" <Da*****@cern.ch> a écrit dans le message de
news:cd**********@sunnews.cern.ch...

In <cd**********@news-reader2.wanadoo.fr> "jacob navia"<ja***@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes:

>The section about boolean values should mention
><stdbool.h> at least. It is still at the C89 stage...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So is the C programming community at large.

So what?

So this is what people writing C code care about. When the importance of
portable programming penetrates your thick skull, you'll understand why.
The current standard is C99. Period.
So what?!? You're not posting to comp.std.c, are you?
The FAQ should mention the current version of the standard.
Sez who? The FAQ maintainer obviously thinks otherwise, as the [ISO]
tag means:

International Organization for Standardization, ISO 9899:1990
(see question 11.2). [ISO]
I am not advocating dropping all references to C89, but the
current standard should be mentioned.

Who are you to decide what the FAQ *should* do? Start your own FAQ and
put whatever you want there. Then see if anyone else cares about it.
Your C tutorial has already been a tremendous success in c.l.c, hasn't it?

Dan
--
Dan Pop
DESY Zeuthen, RZ group
Email: Da*****@ifh.de

[Kevin Bracey]

In message <cd**********@sunnews.cern.ch>
Da*****@cern.ch (Dan Pop) wrote:

In <cd**********@news-reader1.wanadoo.fr> "jacob navia" <ja***@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes:

So what?

So this is what people writing C code care about. When the importance of
portable programming penetrates your thick skull, you'll understand why.

The current standard is C99. Period.

So what?!? You're not posting to comp.std.c, are you?

The FAQ should mention the current version of the standard.

Sez who? The FAQ maintainer obviously thinks otherwise, as the [ISO]
tag means:

International Organization for Standardization, ISO 9899:1990
(see question 11.2). [ISO]

I am not advocating dropping all references to C89, but the
current standard should be mentioned.

Who are you to decide what the FAQ *should* do? Start your own FAQ and
put whatever you want there. Then see if anyone else cares about it.
Your C tutorial has already been a tremendous success in c.l.c, hasn't it?

I think there must be some sort of annual cycle of Mr Pop unpleasantness; I
think I last killfiled him about the same time last year. Maybe he's trying
for the title of c.l.c's most annoying poster? I personally find him far more
of an irritant than the mere incompetents and general trolls like ERT. At
least they're not vindictive, unpleasant sociopaths with far too much posting
time on their hands.

*PLONK*

--
Kevin Bracey, Principal Software Engineer
Tematic Ltd Tel: [phone]
182-190 Newmarket Road Fax: [phone]
Cambridge, CB5 8HE, United Kingdom WWW: http://www.tematic.com/

[jacob navia]

"Kevin Bracey" <ke**********@tematic.com> a écrit dans le message de
news:e6****************@tematic.com...

In message <cd**********@sunnews.cern.ch>
Da*****@cern.ch (Dan Pop) wrote: [snip]
I think there must be some sort of annual cycle of Mr Pop unpleasantness; I think I last killfiled him about the same time last year. Maybe he's trying for the title of c.l.c's most annoying poster? I personally find him far more of an irritant than the mere incompetents and general trolls like ERT. At
least they're not vindictive, unpleasant sociopaths with far too much posting time on their hands.

*PLONK*

Well I surely agree with this description :-)

I can't understand that the same people that strictly say that only
STANDARD C is on topic in this list now say that the C99 standard is
irrelevant. I just want that the FAQ *mentions* the standard
boolean interface header <stdbool.h> !!!

References:

ANSI/ISO C Standard 7.15 Boolean type and values <stdbool.h>

[Ben Pfaff]

"jacob navia" <ja***@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes:

I just want that the FAQ *mentions* the standard boolean
interface header <stdbool.h> !!!

There's nothing anybody but the FAQ maintainer can do about that.
Take it up with Steve Summit.

[E. Robert Tisdale]

jacob navia wrote:

The section about boolean values should mention
<stdbool.h> at least. It is still at the C89 stage...

The C FAQ is obsolete.
It needs to be brought up-to-date.

[Steve Summit]

jacob navia wrote:

The section about boolean values should mention
<stdbool.h> at least.

Indeed it should. I'll make a note. Thanks.

E. Robert Tisdale wrote: The C FAQ is obsolete.
I'm biased, of course, but I think that's a *little* strong.
It needs to be brought up-to-date.

When's the last time you looked at the version posted here?

Steve Summit
sc*@eskimo.com

[Keith Thompson]

"jacob navia" <ja***@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes:

The section about boolean values should mention
<stdbool.h> at least. It is still at the C89 stage...
(Section 9)

I agree. The C FAQ was updated just recently; the latest text
version, at <ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/s/scs/C-faq/faq.gz>, is less than
two weeks old (the HTML version hasn't been updated yet). It does
include material about the C99 standard; I'm a little surprised it
doesn't mention C99's new support for boolean types.

(Anyone who thinks the C FAQ *shouldn't* discuss C99 should probably
take it up with Steve Summit.)

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.

[jacob navia]

"Steve Summit" <sc*@eskimo.com> a écrit dans le message de
news:cd**********@eskinews.eskimo.com...

jacob navia wrote:

The section about boolean values should mention
<stdbool.h> at least.

Indeed it should. I'll make a note. Thanks.

Thanks for your work Steve. The other issues I mention in another
post are not very important. If you want I can contribute a lot
of answered questions about Win32 that could replace the MSDOS
part but that is not essential and I leave it at your choice.

jacob

[Christopher Benson-Manica]

Kevin Bracey <ke**********@tematic.com> spoke thus:

I think there must be some sort of annual cycle of Mr Pop unpleasantness; I
think I last killfiled him about the same time last year. Maybe he's trying
for the title of c.l.c's most annoying poster?

Personally, I'd much prefer being told that I'm wrong in the Dan Pop
manner than not know it.

--
Christopher Benson-Manica | I *should* know what I'm talking about - if I
ataru(at)cyberspace.org | don't, I need to know. Flames welcome.

[Thomas Matthews]

jacob navia wrote:

"Dan Pop" <Da*****@cern.ch> a écrit dans le message de
news:cd**********@sunnews.cern.ch...

In <cd**********@news-reader2.wanadoo.fr> "jacob navia"

<ja***@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes:

The section about boolean values should mention
<stdbool.h> at least. It is still at the C89 stage...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So is the C programming community at large.

So what?

The current standard is C99. Period.

The FAQ should mention the current version of the standard.
I am not advocating dropping all references to C89, but the
current standard should be mentioned.

So there is a later standard. BFD.
What about all those of us who are forced to use compilers
that are built around the C89 standard?
Many of the companies will not uprade their compilers unless
all of the projects require it. Most of my embedded systems
programming has shown that the C89 standard is adequate and
there isn't a _need_ to upgrade.

But what about legacy projects. I got access to a whole lot
of code that uses #define BOOL, #define TRUE, #define FALSE,
and similar. We are not going to change all that old code
to upgrade it to a standard. Simply because customers will
not pay more for their product than they need to. The money
for upgrading code has to come from somewhere.

--
Thomas Matthews

C++ newsgroup welcome message:
http://www.slack.net/~shiva/welcome.txt
C++ Faq: http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite
C Faq: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/c-faq/top.html
alt.comp.lang.learn.c-c++ faq:
http://www.raos.demon.uk/acllc-c++/faq.html
Other sites:
http://www.josuttis.com -- C++ STL Library book
http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl -- Standard Template Library

[E. Robert Tisdale]

Steve Summit wrote:

jacob navia wrote:

The section about boolean values should mention
<stdbool.h> at least.

Indeed it should. I'll make a note. Thanks.

E. Robert Tisdale wrote:

The C FAQ is obsolete.

I'm biased, of course, but I think that's a *little* strong.

It needs to be brought up-to-date.

When's the last time you looked at the version posted here?

I consult the C FAQ frequently.
I don't re-read the entire FAQ every time.
I have probably consulted it at least once in the last week or two.

I think Question 9.1

http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/q9.1.htm

is most relevant here.

What is the right type to use for Boolean values in C?
Why isn't it a standard type?
Should I use #defines or enums for the true and false values?

C does not provide a standard Boolean type,

This is no longer true.

in part because picking one involves a space/time tradeoff
which can best be decided by the programmer.

This isn't a valid reason for not defining a standard boolean type.

I seem to recall that I recently consulted Question 6.16

http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/q6.16.html

How can I dynamically allocate a multidimensional array?

Which does not mention variable dimension arrays --
the safest and simplest solution for new users.

I can't find any FAQ about the restrict keyword.

Question 11.1

http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/q11.1.html

What is the ``ANSI C Standard?''

In addition,
both ANSI and ISO require periodic review of their standards.
This process is beginning in 1995,
and will likely result in a completely revised standard
(nicknamed ``C9X'' on the assumption of completion by 1999).

This information is now almost a decade old.
There is a new standard and the C FAQ should be completely overhauled
to reflect the adoption of that new standard.

[Default User]

Christopher Benson-Manica wrote:

Kevin Bracey <ke**********@tematic.com> spoke thus:

I think there must be some sort of annual cycle of Mr Pop unpleasantness; I
think I last killfiled him about the same time last year. Maybe he's trying
for the title of c.l.c's most annoying poster?

Personally, I'd much prefer being told that I'm wrong in the Dan Pop
manner than not know it.

But then again, I'd rather be told I'm wrong in the Chris Torek manner
than the Dan Pop manner.

Brian Rodenborn

[Keith Thompson]

"E. Robert Tisdale" <E.**************@jpl.nasa.gov> writes:
[...]

There is a new standard and the C FAQ should be completely overhauled
to reflect the adoption of that new standard.

This is being addressed; see the "Other issues with the FAQ" thread.
(I don't agree that a complete overhaul is in order; the FAQ still
needs to be useful to the many programmers who don't have reliable
access to C99 compilers.)

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.

[Mike Wahler]

"E. Robert Tisdale" <E.**************@jpl.nasa.gov> wrote in message
news:cd**********@nntp1.jpl.nasa.gov...

[S. Summit's C FAQ]

This information is now almost a decade old.
There is a new standard and the C FAQ should be completely overhauled
to reflect the adoption of that new standard.

Here's a key point, I think. AFAIK, not many yet have really
'adopted' C99. Many still write to the C89 standard. I do
agree that it would be good to add C99 stuff to the FAQ, but
I also think C89 info should remain (and both should be clearly
distinguished from one another where the information differs.)

-Mike

[Steve Summit]

E. Robert Tisdale wrote:

Steve Summit wrote:

E. Robert Tisdale wrote:

The C FAQ is obsolete.
It needs to be brought up-to-date.
When's the last time you looked at the version posted here?

I consult the C FAQ frequently.
...
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/q9.1.htm
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/q6.16.html
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/q11.1.html
This information is now almost a decade old.

I am the first to admit that the HTML version is badly out of date.
But that's not what I asked.
When's the last time you looked at the version posted to comp.lang.c?
I can't find any FAQ about the restrict keyword.

That's because there are no Frequently Asked Questions about
the restrict keyword. (But you're right, I should mention it
in question 11.28, the old `noalias' question. Thanks.)

Steve Summit
sc*@eskimo.com