[net.micro.pc] Lattice C V1.04 and C-food

dad@eisx.UUCP (D. DeCourcelle) (10/05/83)

Other problems noted with Lattice C v1.04 & C-food:
	* fread() and fwrite() don't work right.  First of all you can't
	  open a file for read/write, only read, write, or append (write
	  with file positioned at end).  Secondly, to do binary I/O you've
	  got to set an external variable before calling fopen().  Finally,
	  doing an fread() when at the end of a file does not return 0 bytes,
	  and the feof() function only indicates EOF after you've tried to
	  read one record beyond the end of the file.  All in all, code that
	  I tried to port that used the "portable" I/O library (fread/fwrite)
	  needed extensive kludging to get working.
	* scanf() goes nuts if you try typing something in, make a mistake,
	  and try to use the backspace key.  This bug really erks me.
	* the date() function insists on returning the date in the string 
	  form YY/MM/DD and not MM/DD/YY or MM-DD-YY as described in the
	  manual.
	* The lack of a libraryian program in the Lattice package makes life
	  a lot more difficult.  Why isn't one provided?
	* NO MATH or TRIG routines!!  If you need 'em, scrounge around and
	  type 'em in (as I had to do).
	* No support for full path file names (eg, /usr/bin/ls.c ).  If you
	  try port or write programs like Unix "diff" you just gotta have
	  full path file names.
After reading all the praises of Lattice C on the net, I must say that
in all fairness that it has some problems.  Luckily I haven't caught it
generating bad code except in one case (which is a documented bug...
using char values in a float expression).  Lack of any source code to the
library functions makes it impossible to deal with library problems.  This
is one area where I must say my Aztec C was much better (full library
source, full math/trig library source too).

I hope the author can fix these bugs before the next release.  If not, could
(s)he at least provide the library source.
	- Don deCourcelle
	  Highland Park, NJ

gj@utastro.UUCP (10/09/83)

The LATTICE C compiler that supports the large memory model is
currently being beta-tested.  The executable it produces is about 25%
larger due to 32 bit pointers.  I don't know when it will be released.