Re: Has Implicit Int been disabled in the new C11 standard? What about other previously depreciated constructions eg gets?

From	Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.c
Subject	Re: Has Implicit Int been disabled in the new C11 standard? What about other previously depreciated constructions eg gets?
Date	2012-02-19 17:19 -0600
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<jhs023$u48$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	<jhp83t$3un$1@speranza.aioe.org> <lnobsveofu.fsf@nuthaus.mib.org> <jhqkco$g1$1@speranza.aioe.org> <0.2067cba4440d7d3b9d58.20120219122155GMT.87ty2nf1y4.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <jhrk06$h7r$1@speranza.aioe.org>

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On 19-Feb-12 13:53, Lord Voldermort wrote:
> Ben Bacarisse writes:
>> Lord Voldermort <nospam@nospam.com> writes: <snip>
>>> Thx for the info Keiht, sorry about breech of protocol - didnt see a
>>> way to tell how many ppl are in this room so didnt know whether it was
>>> empty or ppl just missed my post.
>>
>> Have a read of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet to get an
>> overview.
> 
> Didnt have time to read all that,

Yet you're perfectly willing to waste dozens to thousands of potential
readers' time with your misunderstanding?  How rude of you.

> but just flicking through I didnt see anything about listing other
> people currently in this room/browsing the forum/whatever you want to
> call it.

That's because that's not how USENET works; it is not a live chat room.
 Your message (slowly) spreads from server to server around the world,
and those who are interested will read it when they get around to
checking for new messages on their server, which might be hours, days or
even years later.  Do not expect a response within minutes.

Incidentally, with modern threaded newsreaders, replying to your own
post does not "bump" it.  And failed attempts to do so are more likely
to make readers dismiss your question rather than help you, so don't do
that.

>>> So is there any translation program then to take code for the previous
>>> standard and upgrade it to work with C11 (replace gets by fgets etc)?
>>
>> In a way, yes.  Your compiler can help if you if you ask for conformance
>> to a specific standard.  That is likely to flag up problems, but it
>> won't fix them, of course.  Some, like calls to gets, can't be fixed
>> automatically because the problem is that the function just does not
>> have enough information to do a safe job.  Each call needs to be looked
>> at by someone who understands the code.
>>
>> If the code is very old (pre-C90, often called K&R C) you'd have to have
>> a good reason to update it because the move to prototypes alters the way
>> a function is called in subtle ways.  If in doubt, ask about that
>> specifically.
> 
> Are you sure about this? Industry best practise is -- if possible, be 
> backwards compatable; if that can't be done, provide an automatic 
> updater. This has always been the case eg with Visual Basic.

That has not been the case for any programming language I've used, but I
was never forced to deal with VB.

The usual model is that features are deprecated (meaning they still
work, but you shouldn't use them, and compilers may complain if you do)
for a version or two before being officially removed.

> It seems quite wreckless to update C while breaking existing programs and 
> leaving people to re-code manually!

ISO goes to great lengths to reduce the impact of this, and generally
only does so when the feature is so unsafe that leaving it in would be
more reckless than removing it.

Also, some compilers (eg. gcc) offer the ability to compile your program
according to a specific version of the standard, not just the latest
one.  So, if your program is "broken" by a newer version of the
standard, eg. C11, you can just tell the compiler to use an older one,
eg. C89 or C99.  You only need to fix your program if you want to take
advantage of the new features in the later version.

S

-- 
Stephen Sprunk         "God does not play dice."  --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723         "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS        dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

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