sah@mips.COM (Steve Hanson) (04/25/88)
The use of the predefined naming convention in dpANSI C appears
to provide a reasonable way to support machine-dependent functions.
The MIPS C Compiler use of the stack pointer makes the
*machine-dependent* implementation of alloca(3) impossible. [The
reasons for this and why we want to support alloca could be the subject
for another posting.] By using the dpANSI C predefined naming
convention a built-in function can be provided to *efficiently* support
application packages making use of alloca.
The idea would be to provide a header file (e.g. alloca.h)
containing the macro-definition:
# define alloca(x) _BUILTIN_alloca(x)
The MIPS C Compiler upon seeing the call to _BUILTIN_alloca(x) would
transform it into the appropriate in-line sequence of code.
Comments regarding experiences with the dpANSI C predefine naming convention
and the use of built-in functions are welcome?
--
UUCP: {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!sah
USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 Arques Ave, Sunnyvale CA, 94086