[comp.sys.dec] Decus C

tmiller@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Todd Miller) (03/22/91)

Does anyone out there know if the latest revisions to DECUS C (seems to
be 11S107, Symposium Collection from RSX SIG, Spring 1989)  contains 
enough fixes to make it a generally usefule compiler?  While I realize
that the latest version has I and D space requirements which
my PRO 11/23 cannot handle I'm more interested in the level of 
compatability with more popular C compilers.  I currently have the
PRO version of DECUS C but more often than not the source code I get has
to be extensively modified to compile correctly.  Is it worth the time
and money to remove the I and D space code and get it to run?  The old
compiler is too limited even to declare structures inside code blocks,
it can't handle very some data type declarations, etc...  I'd like to
see something that can handle most standard C (if there is such a thing),
my current compiler seems not to do this.


						Thanks,
							Todd M. Miller  

terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.) (03/24/91)

In article <1991Mar22.030728.19773@news.cs.brandeis.edu>, tmiller@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Todd Miller) writes:
> 
> Does anyone out there know if the latest revisions to DECUS C (seems to
> be 11S107, Symposium Collection from RSX SIG, Spring 1989)  contains 
> enough fixes to make it a generally usefule compiler?  While I realize
> that the latest version has I and D space requirements which
> my PRO 11/23 cannot handle I'm more interested in the level of 
> compatability with more popular C compilers. [...]

  A lot of people have done a lot of work on DECUS C since the last release
Martin Minow put together. However, much of that work has not been co-ordinated
and consists of users adding some needed feature for their environment. The 
sort of thing you're looking for would require a concerted effort throughout
the compiler (and the libraries, if you're talking ANSI C).

  DEC now offers a PDP-11 C compiler (V1.1 shipped recently). At the moment it
is a strict ANSI compiler (ANSI and not much else), but it _is_ improving and
it has a much better ANSI-compliance-checker than VAX C.

  If your school is part of the DEC Education Initiative, there is a VMS native
mode compiler (which generates PDP-11 code) version on the Condist CD. V1.1 is
new on the March '91 CD. You just copy the objects and the libraries to your
PDP-11 and link there. There's also a PDP-11 version of the compiler (for RSX,
RSTS, and RT-11) if you want to pursue that option (the PDP-11 hosted version
isn't in the CSLG).

	Terry Kennedy		Operations Manager, Academic Computing
	terry@spcvxa.bitnet	St. Peter's College, US
	terry@spcvxa.spc.edu	(201) 915-9381