From 7438464790918291204 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII X-Google-Thread: f78e5,c6421e9689b6c205 X-Google-Attributes: gidf78e5,public From: kanze@lts.sel.alcatel.de (James Kanze US/ESC 60/3/141 #40763) Subject: Re: How can I tell if my compiler supports the bool type? Date: 1996/06/18 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 160842818 x-lines: 31 sender: news@lts.sel.alcatel.de references: <4pnpmp$14oq@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <31C2996F.73AE@millersystems.com> <4q4tgb$duq@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> content-length: 1656 apparently-to: std-c++@ncar.ucar.edu organization: GABI Software, Sarl. newsgroups: comp.std.c++ originator: clamage@taumet In article <4q4tgb$duq@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> fjh@mundook.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson) writes: |> Terry Thorsen writes: |> >Shame on stl implementors for not at least capitalizing bool. |> Well, to be fair it wasn't the STL implementors (Stepanov and Lee et al) |> who added `bool'; although both STL and `bool' are part of draft |> standard C++, they were put there in quite separate proposals by |> different people. I believe the names `bool', `true', and `false' were |> chosen ahead of other names (such as BOOLEAN, Boolean, boolean, BOOL, |> Bool, TRUE, FALSE, and so forth) for two reasons: partly for |> consistency with other C and C++ keywords, which are all lowercase, but |> also because these names were (contrary to what you implied) in less |> frequent use than the alternatives. And in the case in question, it is worth pointing out that in the original posting, the conflict was due to a data member called bool in a library (not in STL). IMHO, this was the real error; even before the standards committee adopted bool, it doesn't take much reflection to realize that a name like this is a likely candidate for name clashes (in user macros, for example). I have no problem with standard's choice of name; I do have a problem with other library providers not thinking five minutes about potential name clashes. -- James Kanze Tel.: (+33) 88 14 49 00 email: kanze@gabi-soft.fr GABI Software, Sarl., 8 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, F-67000 Strasbourg, France Conseils, �tudes et r�alisations en logiciel orient� objet -- -- A la recherche d'une activit� dans une region francophone [ comp.std.c++ is moderated. To submit articles: try just posting with ] [ your news-reader. If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@ncar.ucar.edu ] [ FAQ: http://reality.sgi.com/employees/austern_mti/std-c++/faq.html ] [ Policy: http://reality.sgi.com/employees/austern_mti/std-c++/policy.html ] [ Comments? mailto:std-c++-request@ncar.ucar.edu ]