mem@sii.UUCP (Mark Mallett) (07/12/85)
There were some recent inquiries about the Ecosoft C compiler. I bought
one recently for my CP/M-80 system. One reason I was attracted to it was
because they have a package bundled with the SLR assembler/linker system,
which I had intended to buy anyway. I haven't used the C compiler much
yet (mainly because it won't compile my programs), but I have the following
negative comments:
- It is EXTREMELY verbose. It manages to fill up most of a screenful during
the compile of a single program. With the AZTEC compiler, I can start a
lot of compiles, go away, and see that they all finished successfully when
I come back.
- It is also very slow. This is alleviated by the use of the SLR package,
which is extremely fast, but it can't make up for the slowness of the
compiler.
- The default is to abort the compile on the first error. This is absurd.
There is an option to override this, but I haven't noticed that it works
very well.
And the last issue, which is not a bulleted item because it causes me some
amount of concern, and is the reason why it won't compile any of my programs.
When it runs across a statement like this:
printf ("So you say you are a sailor?\n");
it gives a fatal error (variable undefined; assumed int). I discovered that
it objects to the space between the "printf" and the "(". I went and looked
this up in the K&R book, which said that a reference to an undeclared
function was infered by the presense of an opening parenthesis immediately
following the expression (the symbol "printf"). I guess it comes down to
the interpretation of "immediately following". In a lexical sense, or in
a literal sense? Admittedly, spaces are significant in many funny places
in C. But I've never had troubles compiling my code with other compilers,
and it is just one of my habits to use spaces this way.
So what's the word? Are all my programs in drastic need of repair? or
is EcoSoft being too hardnosed?
Mark Mallett
decvax!sii!mem or ittvax!sii!mem