Please see below ... Joe.

-----Original Message----- From: Frank Heckenbach [SMTP:frank@g-n-u.de] Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 9:50 AM To: cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net; gpc@gnu.de Subject: Re: compiler bug

I'm replying to several mails at once ...

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CBFalconer wrote:

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...

PROGRAM testnn1;

BEGIN writeln('Testnn fails to detect lack of output file parameter'); (* here is needed a way to return a status *) (* which is missing from ISO Pascal *) (* PascalP uses "terminate(integer)" extension *) END.

This produces a warning with `gpc --standard-pascal'. If you want it to be an error, add `-Werror'.

[Joe da Silva] Clearly, "output" IS being used by this program, so the fact that it's missing as a parameter of the program, is clearly an error (unless of course, you are compiling to the Borland dialect). If GPC can deal with this (which AFAIK it can), then it's a "non-fatal" error. IMHO, a warning should result only when something is "suspicious", rather than when something is clearly erroneous, as in this example.

...

PROGRAM testnn2(output);

CONST a = 1;

TYPE b = integer;

CONST c = 2;

BEGIN writeln('Failure to detect misordered declarations'); END.

I'm putting it in the test suite (chuck1.pas), so we can fix it sometime. (Though I must admit that the priority isn't very high, at least for me, since I don't program in plain SP myself, and see such restrictions as rather limiting -- mixing declaration blocks allows for more "topic oriented" structuring. But, of course, to be really conformant, GPC must detect this in the future.)

[Joe da Silva] What do you consider "Standard"??? As far as I'm concerned, ISO-10206 is the standard to which GPC aspires, so why should GPC regard the above as an error, when this is clearly permitted by ISO-10206. IMHO, ISO-7185 should not be regarded as if it's the one and only Pascal standard. Prospero call this version of the language "Classic Pascal", to distinguish it from "Extended Pascal". I like that idea. I don't think it helps Pascal's image to always refer to ISO-7185 as THE Pascal standard, since this gives the impression of a very restricted and limited language, which is not something that Pascal deserves. I think we should promote the ISO-10206 standard, not pretend there is only one Pascal standard. (Rant over ;-)