clt@pur-phy (Carrick Talmadge) (10/08/88)
Here is something I've always wondered about with regards to C. Why is it that the syntax for do-while is do statement; while (expression) ; rather than what I'd think would be more useful: do statement; while (expression) statement; where "statement;" could of course be a compound statement. I've seen this more general construct in other languages, so it seems like it could be done. I'm curious to hear if anyone has heard a rationale for why it was left out of the language. Carrick Talmadge clt@newton.physics.purdue.edu ------- The problem with this country is, if you shoot/hang/fire one bureaucrat, they hire two more to take his place...
gwyn@smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (10/08/88)
The
loop stuff
until condition
more_stuff
pool
construct is the most general form of loop. It would be useful
if it were the ONLY loop construct in an Algol-like language.
However, C has several loop constructs for reasons of convenience,
and the exit from the middle of a loop is easily accomplished:
for(;;) {
stuff
if(condition) break;
more_stuff
}
so that there is no real need to add such a construct. Save it
for a new programming language (D?).