According to Frank Heckenbach:

Here are a few features I'd like to see in gpc. I hope they can be implemented without much work...

• Commandline options to specify the directory(ies) a) to search for units/modules (source or compiled)

My current plan is to use the `-L' path/s for this purpose.

b) to put compiled modules (.o, .gpi, .gpm) c) to put compiled programs (executables).

(They're similar to some BP options, except that BP uses the same for b) and c) which I think is a bad idea, so I'd prefer different options.)

\begin{sigh} Even more options! \end{sigh}

What about extending (*$executable-file-name="foo"*) to accept a directory? Or else (*$executable-path-name="/foo"*) and (*$object-path-name="/bar"*)?

• Passing the actual size for untyped (resp. void) parameters, so it can be access with sizeof.

This would spoil compatibility to other languages such as C.

(E.g., with untyped files (at least in BP) I often have to do things like "blockread(f,x,sizeof(x))", which could be simplified to "blockreadvar(f,x)" then.)

So perhaps make "Procedure Foo ( Var x )" pass the size, and keep "Procedure Foo ( Var x: Void )" as it is (i.e. without passing the size)? Or introduce another data type?

And for better BP compatibility:

• A function "Concat", equivalent to the operator "+" for strings. It can't be declared in system.pas since (in BP) it allows an arbitrary number of arguments.

• Ignoring the BP directives "near" and "far" after procedure/function declarations (they're irrelevant to gpc, anyway) -- only in "--borland-pascal" mode, of course.

Okay; I have put it on my list.

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 [970624] - http://home.pages.de/~gnu-pascal/ [970125]