preece@uicsl.UUCP (10/20/83)
#R:bronze:-81600:uicsl:6400011:000:1223 uicsl!preece Oct 13 12:50:00 1983 I didn't really understand why multi-character constants would be useful in the example given in the original article. (I admit that I didn't try very hard.) I would never use a machine-dependent "feature" like that. Portability is a very important issue. ---------- The use of multi-character constants is not necessarily non-portable. Remember, while you may work on multiple machines, your program only has to work on one machine at a time. So it can use multi-character constants IN CERTAIN WAYS and presume that they will work just fine. This generally excludes, however, cases where the constants are compared to something constructed by the program, as opposed to something constructed by the compiler, since the construction process would be machine dependent. This excludes most uses I can think of, but might allow some in which the multi-character constants were used for clarity. That is, you cannot read several characters in and expect to compare them to a multiple character constant, but you could use multi-character constants for internal state designators. I wouldn't say it's a good idea to do this, though, just that it's not necessarily impossible. scott preece pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!preece