NULL vs 0 - (nf)

[Henry Spencer]

Doug Gwyn asks:

  	int	xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxyxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
  	int	xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxzxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
  Are these going to be guaranteed to be distinct identifiers in the new
  C language standard?  What if there were 50 x characters?  100?  It is
  not possible to write portable code without some guarantee about this.

  Another drawback to flexnames is that the portable programmer cannot
  use them until they are covered by the language standard.  At present,
  C compilers often support only the 8 chars promised in the K&R book.

The way I heard it at UniSnorum, the ANSI standard is going to say that
the standard is 8 characters, but arbitrary-length names will be in the
appendix describing "standard extensions".  That is, "we think it's a
good idea but we don't want to require everyone to do it".

If you don't like this, blame Berkeley:  as Dennis Ritchie has been
heard to say (I'm told), "we *had* a standard".
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry