| Gordon Sande 2008-02-14, 7:14 pm |
| On 2008-02-14 14:27:55 -0400, glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> said:
> Craig Dedo wrote:
> (snip)
>
>
> To me, the biggest reason not to implement VFE is that they don't
> provide any ability that isn't there with character string format
> and internal I/O.
>
> Note that the VFE extension was before internal I/O was added to
> the standard, though many compilers that had it also provided an
> internal I/O extension.
>
> Some might say they are more readable, and sometimes that is reason
> enough to add a feature to the standard. In this case, I don't
> believe it is.
With the addition of nonadvancing output a variable repetition is
easy to achieve. Many other forms of flexibility are also provided
by this mechanism. The compactness of VFEs comes at a considerable
price in error proneness.
The VFEs were a quick hack to provide variable repetition back when
there was only a single fixed FORMAT available. They lost relevance
when first internal and then nonadvancing I/O became available.
|