Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 05:04:32 +0200 From: Roelof Osinga <roelof@nisser.com> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu>, j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: style(9) question Message-ID: <3B01EE40.4D2D6534@nisser.com> References: <20010515184940.A56109@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <p05100e0bb727313f1395@[128.113.24.47]> <20010516112824.B35292@wantadilla.lemis.com>
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Greg Lehey wrote:
>
> On Tuesday, 15 May 2001 at 15:17:54 -0400, Garance A Drosihn wrote:
> > At 6:49 PM +0100 5/15/01, j mckitrick wrote:
> >> Why does style(9) put parentheses around return values?
> >
> > Apparently, some very early versions of C required this.
>
> Specifically, versions before about 1973.
>
> So why do we still do it? I don't know.
Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie, The C Programming Language
1978 (!) published by Prentice Hall Software Series.
[note. This book was set in Times Roman and Courier 12 by the authors
using a Graphic Systems phototypesetter driven by a PDP-11/70 running
under the UNIX operating system.
So why is it weird when I ask how to get (g|t)roff to generate PS A4, eh?]
In Chapter 4 on page 68 they tell us:
The /return/ statement is the mechanism for returning a value from the
called function to its caller. Any expression can follow /return/:
/return (|expression|)/
where / denotes courier font and | italics.
So why? Because ``THEY'' sayd so in 1978! ;)
Roelof
PS you can't trust anyone these days ;)
PPS the () is the highest priority primary-expression operator and
as such is typed. Mind you, this part gets reasonably obfuscated :)
--
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