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From: albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst)
Subject: Re: Certified C compilers for safety-critical embedded systems
Organization: Dutch Forth Workshop
Message-ID: <HrLMuD.1qG.1.spenarn@spenarnc.xs4all.nl>
References: <3fe00b82.90228601@News.CIS.DFN.DE>
 <bsumbs$k9e$2@a1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> <3ff9df16.3024
 <1073487133.232393@master.nyc.kbcfp.com>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 20:13:25 GMT
Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.arch.embedded:7704 comp.lang.ada:4514
Date: 2004-01-16T20:13:25+00:00
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In article <1073487133.232393@master.nyc.kbcfp.com>,
Hyman Rosen  <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote:
>Frank J. Lhota wrote:
>> But learning about m4 is a valuable exercise! It is a flexible and powerful
>> preprocessor with far more capabilities that the C preprocessor.
>
>One of the things you can learn about m4 is that it has no way of
>dealing specially with character strings, so if you're using it on
>Ada programs and innocently want to do
>     Text_IO.Put_Line("This is a UNIX system!");
>you could very easily wind up with
>     Text_IO.Put_Line("This is a 1 system!");

Of course it does.
You should have quoted it.
Text_IO.Put_Line(`"This is a UNIX system!"');

There is a good reason that m4 has its own quotes.
With it comes utmost flexibility, and a lot of headaches.
Sometimes you want expansion:
void signon()
{
   printf("NAME");
   printf("SUPPLIER");
   printf("VERSION");
   printf("DATE");
}


And if you dislike ` bracketing for m4 use changequote()
Unfortunately this breaks down when the string contains a
single quote.

I use m4 extensively, but I can appreciate that c-folks prefer
a c-aware pre-processor in behalf of the above pit falls.

Nowadays I would say the way to go is xml.
You then can never hide that something is to be expanded,
but maybe that is just as well.

--
Groetjes Albert.
-- 
Albert van der Horst,Oranjestr 8,3511 RA UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
        One man-hour to invent,
                One man-week to implement,
                        One lawyer-year to patent.