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NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 14:53:23 -0600
From: Gareth Owen <gwowen@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: gcc needs a curly bracket matching/counting function
References: <o3a201$nfs$1@dont-email.me> <o3a38b$qhp$1@dont-email.me> <o3a8if$1rg$1@dont-email.me> <87zijq5y6s.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <o3buib$o4f$1@dont-email.me> <o3bvs0$tnf$1@dont-email.me> <lnr352fja1.fsf@kst-u.example.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 20:53:23 +0000
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Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:99935

Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> writes:

> If the code doesn't use macros, digraphs, or trigraphs to hide braces,
> existing tools can be used to find any missing braces.  If it does, I
> probably don't care about fixing it.

The only code that I've seen that
a) doesn't (ab)use the features you mention above
b) confuses bracket matchers (emacs, specifically)

#ifdef CAUTIOUS_DOOHICKEY_FROBNICATION
   if(doohickey != NULL && FROBNICATION_DEPTH < 3) {
#else
   if(doohickey != NULL) {
#endif
      /// Refrobnicate the doohickey
      frobnicate(doohickey);
   }

That's not a style I would use, or recommend, but I have worked on
codebases with constructs like that in it, and sometimes so many that
refactoring becomes quite an intrusive change.