leo@ehviea.ine.philips.nl (Leo de Wit) (05/25/90)
In article <1990May22.124936.5727@aucs.uucp> 880716a@aucs.UUCP (Dave Astels) writes: |In article <4275@infmx.UUCP> briand@infmx.UUCP (brian donat) writes: |> When would a programmer want to explicitly use the |> 'auto' storage class? | |I've often wondered that myself. If you find out, let me know. Today's tendency for J. Random Hacker is to prefer 'bike' storage class to 'auto' storage class; using additional keywords like push(-bike) to explicitly request stack allocation, or mountain (bike) for huge stacks. The last one is not supported very well on Intel architectures. :-). Leo.
dankg@monsoon.Berkeley.EDU (Dan KoGai) (05/26/90)
In article <803@ehviea.ine.philips.nl> leo@ehviea.UUCP (Leo de Wit) writes: >In article <1990May22.124936.5727@aucs.uucp> 880716a@aucs.UUCP (Dave Astels) writes: >|In article <4275@infmx.UUCP> briand@infmx.UUCP (brian donat) writes: >|> When would a programmer want to explicitly use the >|> 'auto' storage class? >| >|I've often wondered that myself. If you find out, let me know. Come to think there's no such storage classes as "manual", and I never heard of explicit decreation of "intern" variable. Is static opposite to auto? (maybe). If so auto must have been called "dynamic". >Today's tendency for J. Random Hacker is to prefer 'bike' storage class >to 'auto' storage class; using additional keywords like push(-bike) to >explicitly request stack allocation, or mountain (bike) for huge >stacks. The last one is not supported very well on Intel architectures. I buy it. And instead of segmentation fault, you get "flat tire", "chain is torn", etc. But in this implementation, pop sometimes dumps core :) ---------------- ____ __ __ + Dan The "obfuscunated" Man ||__||__| + E-mail: dankg@ocf.berkeley.edu ____| ______ + Voice: +1 415-549-6111 | |__|__| + USnail: 1730 Laloma Berkeley, CA 94709 U.S.A |___ |__|__| + |____|____ + "What's the biggest U.S. export to Japan?" \_| | + "Bullshit. It makes the best fertilizer for their rice" Dan Kogai (dankg@ocf.berkeley.edu)
mikero@microsoft.UUCP (Michael ROBIN) (05/31/90)
In article <803@ehviea.ine.philips.nl> leo@ehviea.UUCP (Leo de Wit) writes: >In article <1990May22.124936.5727@aucs.uucp> 880716a@aucs.UUCP (Dave Astels) writes: >|In article <4275@infmx.UUCP> briand@infmx.UUCP (brian donat) writes: >|> When would a programmer want to explicitly use the >|> 'auto' storage class? >| >|I've often wondered that myself. If you find out, let me know. > Gee, don't you guys know anything? You use "auto" to line up your declarations: static int x; static int x; register int y; instead of register int y; auto int z; int z; :)
ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) (05/31/90)
In article <4275@infmx.UUCP> briand@infmx.UUCP (brian donat) writes: > When would a programmer want to explicitly use the 'auto' storage class? In article <54963@microsoft.UUCP>, mikero@microsoft.UUCP (Michael ROBIN) writes: > Gee, don't you guys know anything? You use "auto" to line up your declarations: I have been waiting for the people who were _there_ to answer, but so far no-one has. The answer is HISTORY. C had 'storage' qualifiers BEFORE it had types. (Take a look at 'bc' some time.) (At that time, it did not have nested blocks.) So you would write foo(a) /* a is an int, foo returns int */ { static b; /* b is a static int */ auto c; /* c is an "automatic" int */ ... } In fact you can still write your programs that way if you really want to. C is descended from B which is derived from BCPL, in which there was one type, "machine word" (which also served as pointer and float). -- "A 7th class of programs, correct in every way, is believed to exist by a few computer scientists. However, no example could be found to include here."
john@stat.tamu.edu (John S. Price) (05/31/90)
In article <3115@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes: >In article <4275@infmx.UUCP> briand@infmx.UUCP (brian donat) writes: >I have been waiting for the people who were _there_ to answer, but so far >no-one has. The answer is HISTORY. C had 'storage' qualifiers BEFORE it >had types. (Take a look at 'bc' some time.) (At that time, it did not I think I stated this from the beginning... I guess everyone ignored it. Oh well... Yes, the use of auto was inherited from earlier C implementations, and from B, as the previous poster stated. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Price | It infuriates me to be wrong john@stat.tamu.edu | when I know I'm right.... --------------------------------------------------------------------------