constant expressions

[diamond@tkovoa]

In article <13555 at smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn at smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>In article <1923 at tkou02.enet.dec.com> diamond at tkou02.enet.dec.com (diamond at tkovoa) writes:
>>Yes, section 3.4 says that a constant expression CAN be evaluated during
>>translation.  It is sufficiently clear that the translator is NOT REQUIRED
>>to do so.
>Wrong, at least when the translator needs to evaluate the expression in
>order to perform the translation.

Besides clearly NOT REQUIRING translation-time evaluations, I have also seen
clear REASONS for this non-requirement.  If your target machine can handle
128-bit ints, your host machine is not required to provide a simulator.
"Wrong" appears wrong.

>However, a conforming
>implementation must ACT exactly as though constant expressions ARE
>evaluated in many contexts.

Yes, on this we agree -- but it is still a guess.
-- 
Norman Diamond, Nihon DEC     diamond at tkou02.enet.dec.com
This is me speaking.  If you want to hear the company speak, you need DECtalk.