[comp.lang.c] Looking for source for obtaining latest draft standard

steve@aardvark.UUCP (Steve Willoughby) (02/16/90)

I'm sure this has come up several times in the past, but I just got my
news feed re-established and haven't been connected for several months...

Can anyone tell me where I can get the latest copy of the ANSI C committee's
draft standard?  

Thanks,
Steve Willoughby (e-mail replies to the address below, NOT the Reply-To: line
in the header)

-- 
Steve Willoughby                       |-------------------------------------
                                       | "There's no point in being grown up
    sun.com!nosun!tessi!aardvark!steve | if you can't be childish sometimes."
  uunet!tektronix!tessi!aardvark!steve |                 -- Dr. Who

henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (02/17/90)

In article <147@aardvark.UUCP> steve@aardvark.UUCP (Steve Willoughby) writes:
>Can anyone tell me where I can get the latest copy of the ANSI C committee's
>draft standard?  

The standard is now approved, but not yet published last I heard.  Global
Engineering Documents [(714)261-1455] carried the drafts and will carry
the standard, but may not be able to sell you anything right this minute.
-- 
"The N in NFS stands for Not, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
or Need, or perhaps Nightmare"| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

rex@aussie.UUCP (Rex Jaeschke) (02/17/90)

> Reply-To: steve@aardvark.UUCP (Steve Willoughby)
> 
> Can anyone tell me where I can get the latest copy of the ANSI C committee's
> draft standard?  

While researching an article for the March issue of The Journal of C 
Language Translation, I called ANSI. Here's the details:

-------------------------------------------------------------------
(ANSI anticipates copies being available by late March.) The
Standard's official designation is ANSI~X3.159-1989.  To obtain a
copy, contact:

American National Standards Institute
Sales Department
1430 Broadway
New York, NY 10018
(212) 642-4900
fax (212) 302-1286

At press time, the price of the standard had not yet been determined.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: they said that you will NOT be able to get copies of the final 
standard from Global Engineering Documents (where drafts were 
available), ONLY from ANSI.

Rex

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rex Jaeschke     |  Journal of C Language Translation  | C Users Journal
(703) 860-0091   |        2051 Swans Neck Way          | DEC PROFESSIONAL
uunet!aussie!rex |     Reston, Virginia 22091, USA     | Programmers Journal
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Convener of the Numerical C Extensions Group (NCEG)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

walter@hpclwjm.HP.COM (Walter Murray) (02/21/90)

Rex Jaeschke writes:

>> Reply-To: steve@aardvark.UUCP (Steve Willoughby)
>> 
>> Can anyone tell me where I can get the latest copy of the ANSI C committee's
>> draft standard?  

> [Gives address and phone for ANSI]

> Note: they said that you will NOT be able to get copies of the final 
> standard from Global Engineering Documents (where drafts were 
> available), ONLY from ANSI.

For those who want something NOW, Global is again selling copies of the
latest draft.  (They had suspended sales of the draft, but have resumed
as of last week, presumably because the standard is not yet available.)

And despite what ANSI may tell you, Global IS accepting orders for
the standard as well.  

As one who has called both Global and ANSI several times, I offer
the personal impression that the people at Global seem much more
helpful and "with it" than those at ANSI.

Walter Murray
----------

mcdaniel@amara.uucp (Tim McDaniel) (02/21/90)

In article <1990Feb16.173146.24403@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry
Spencer) writes:

   The standard is now approved, but not yet published last I heard.  Global
   Engineering Documents [(714)261-1455] carried the drafts and will carry
   the standard, but may not be able to sell you anything right this minute.

I just called Globe, and they do have copies of the draft and
Rationale for $70, with up to $10 for postage and handling.  The
toll-free number for their St. Louis office is 800 854 7179, BTW.

I'm sure the final draft is very close to the approved standard, but
are they identical?

(Pardon me if my .signature is included twice.)

--
Tim McDaniel
Applied Dynamics International, Ann Arbor, MI
Internet: mcdaniel%amara.uucp@mailgw.cc.umich.edu
UUCP: {uunet,sharkey}!amara!mcdaniel
--
Tim McDaniel
Applied Dynamics International, Ann Arbor, MI
Internet: mcdaniel%amara.uucp@mailgw.cc.umich.edu
UUCP: {uunet,sharkey}!amara!mcdaniel

henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (02/22/90)

In article <660078@hpclwjm.HP.COM> walter@hpclwjm.HP.COM (Walter Murray) writes:
>And despite what ANSI may tell you, Global IS accepting orders for
>the standard as well.  
>
>As one who has called both Global and ANSI several times, I offer
>the personal impression that the people at Global seem much more
>helpful and "with it" than those at ANSI.

The folks at Global don't think they've got a monopoly, while the folks at
ANSI do.  You're undoubtedly paying a modest premium for dealing with Global,
since they have to get their copies from ANSI and they may not be able to
get much of a bulk discount, but I agree that they're easier to deal with.
-- 
"The N in NFS stands for Not, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
or Need, or perhaps Nightmare"| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) (02/23/90)

To the query:

> > I'm sure the final draft is very close to the approved standard, but
> > are they identical?

Doug Gwyn responds in comp.std.c:

> They better be!

And indeed this is what everything I've seen about this question has said--
until yesterday!  Yesterday I received a copy of the Report of the Redactor,
dated February 2, 1990.  It begins:

#  1. Status
#
#  As you know, the draft has been approved as a standard.  The next step
#  is the ANSI editorial review, currently in progress as of the writing
#  of this report.  Along with the changes requested by ANSI, we were
#  given license to correct any minor technical errors, as long as they
#  were completely editorial.  This allowed us to fold in those points
#  mentioned in the ISO balloting (for DP9899) that were editorial and
#  the few editorial items I have accumulated over the past year.
#
#  By the March meeting, the Standard should be well along in the public-
#  ation process, and should be available by mid to late March.

There follows a list of 29 changes, all of which certainly seem to me to be
indisputably editorial.  Here are the first few:

#  1.6, pages 2-3, lines 33-46 [sic]
#  Alphabetize the definitions.
#
#  1.6, page 3, line 22
#  Change "Standard imposes" to "Standard explicitly imposes".  (This
#  clarifies that "unspecified behavior" only covers those places for
#  which the Standard says such, not when nothing is stated.)
#
#  2.1.2.3, page 11, line 30
#  Change "-32753" to "-32754".  (An "off by one" bug in the example.)
#
#  2.2.1, page 11, line 30
#  For clarity, even though header names are covered by the preprocessing
#  token case, change "literal," to "literal, a header name,".

Perhaps those responsible for it can see their way to posting the
entire list of changes, which runs to about 3 typeset pages.

The report continues:

#  3. ANSI editorial changes
#
#  These are some of the changes from ANSI.  Virtually all are stylistic
#  in nature.  The editors were very surprised by the *lack* of problems
#  with the draft, and complimented our work.
#
#  * The contents and the foreword had to be interchanged.
#  * The page numbers in the contents all should be right justified.
#  * The contents should have only "Contents" as its title.

and so on through a total of 20 items of this type.


This article is cross-posted to comp.lang.c, with followups directed back
to comp.std.c.

-- 
Mark Brader		     "It is impractical for the standard to attempt to
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto	      constrain the behavior of code that does not obey
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com      the constraints of the standard."  -- Doug Gwyn

All original text in this article is in the public domain.