macro to specify output paramet

[karl at haddock]

BMS-AT!stuart writes:
>[re the declaration of reference types "foo(char &c)"]
>I don't like this.  It violates the nice consistent way that C expressions
>work.  'char *c' means that '*c' is of type char.  '&c' is not of type
>char in any other context.

I am also somewhat uneasy about calling it "char &c".  The consistent way to
declare it would be "char *&c", since you have to write "&c" to get ahold of
the "char *" object you are really using.

>I would like to see "structure constants" which would allow assignment to
>aggregate types.
>       complex z;
>       z = { a+1, exp(b) };
>       foo( (complex) { a, b } );

The problem, as your last example points out, is that the notation "{...}"
doesn't distinguish between different structure types.  I suppose the cast
notation is workable, but kinda ugly.

>Of course any of these could be coded by assigning each member in turn.

No, the last example requires assigning each member to a temporary, and then
passing that temporary as an argument.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl; karl at haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint