On Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:23:16 -0400, Edward Diener wrote:
The remark refers in the resolution above refers to "my reading of the standard" but does not say which standard is being referred to. Is this part of C99 or C++11 ? I have asked about this on the C++ standard NG and am awaiting an answer.
I am surprised by the evaluation of "#elif constant expression" when the corrwesponding #if statament is true because it means that #if - #elif is not equivalent to #if - #else - #if in this particular case, and I am sure many C++ programmers would have expected that the two were indeed equivalent.
It doesn't "evaluate" it; it just parses it. Even in normal code and, in most cases, even with dynamically-typed code, the compiler or interpreter still has to parse the else-if expressions. Neither C99 or C++98 (or C+ +11) are particularly clear on this. To me that means that the solution is on the code side rather than requiring a compiler to allow semi- unspecified behavior in the short term and to alter the standard if it is important enough in the long term. -Paul