Using the Commercial At sign in C

[wjjordan at watrose.UUCP]

In article <1499 at brl-adm.ARPA> LINNDR%VUENGVAX.BITNET at wiscvm.wisc.edu writes:
>Recently, a posting questioned the overloading of '+' for use as an
>operator for forcing order of evaluation. Since the commercial '@' sign
>is not otherwise used in C (because of it's former as a line kill char
>in Version X Unix?), maybe it would be a better choice. Because this ability
>is a new ability, maybe its inclusion warrants a new operator.

Quantum Software Systems' C compiler for the 80x86 family uses the @
to dereference pointers off the extra segment register.  They've also
conveniently provided -} to do the same thing for structure references.
These are useful extensions in an Intel environment only, and a bloody
pain to figure out and port otherwise.

These make for some really sleazy machine-dependent code.  Drives
project assurance and test departments nuts.

						Jim

-- 
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

	     W. Jim Jordan
Moving to Toronto for a work term... no address available yet.