[comp.lang.c++] Feature wish list

eppstein@garfield.columbia.edu (David Eppstein) (08/29/87)

Here are a couple of things I could use in C++:

First, it would be useful if declarations were expressions rather than
statements.  That way I could do something like

    while ((int var = fn()) != 0) do something with var;

rather than having to declare var elsewhere.  The syntax would be
unambiguous, although maybe it would be a problem making it LR.  As it
is, the note on page 9 about not declaring variables without
initializing them is less true than it could be.

Second, I would like some way of declaring functions that never return.
Currently I comment all of them and say they return void, but that is a
bit unsatisfying.  Also the compiler could conceivably generate better
code knowing about them.  My nomination for the keyword to use is goto.

Comments?
-- 
David Eppstein, eppstein@cs.columbia.edu, Columbia U. Computer Science Dept.