According to Nils Bokermann:

[...]

I don't like the idea of a local (user) configuration file as GPC.CFG or .gpcrc. There is a way of doing it in a makefile. If someone _needs_ a compiler which is a borland like compiler for standard, might there be a compile-time switch? Let's consider something like ./configure --try-to-be-a-borland-compiler or ./configure --use-standard-pascal.

What's wrong about symbolic links `spc', `epc', `bpc' to `gpc' which make GPC strictly comply to Standard Pascal, Extended Pascal, or Borlnand Pascal (by passing the run-time parameters `--standard-pascal' etc.)? A compile-time switch would cause *much* more trouble than that.

As I wrote earlier, I have the impression that most people do neither want a strinct ISO Pascal compiler nor a perfect Borland Pascal emulator, but they want an improved compiler with many extensions, BASED ON THEIR FAVOURITE COMPILER. This is

* impossible,

* but reality.

Up to now, the default field width is the only case where Borland and ISO (more exactly: a de-facto standard based on ISO) really contradict. In all other cases Borland Pascal and ISO Pascal can peacefully coexist in one and the same compiler - which has of course to identify the dialect from the context.

ONLY such cases with a REAL contradiction can, IMHO, justify a compile-time switch. And even here I am not sure ...

Yours,

Peter

Dipl.-Phys. Peter Gerwinski, Essen, Germany, free physicist and programmer peter.gerwinski@uni-essen.de - http://home.pages.de/~peter.gerwinski/ [970201] maintainer GNU Pascal [970401] - http://home.pages.de/~gnu-pascal/ [970125]