Subj : Re: Do all programming languages use files?
To   : comp.programming
From : Scott Moore
Date : Mon Aug 29 2005 03:19 pm

Scott Moore wrote:

> From K&R "The C programming language" the introduction:
> 
> "C itself provides no input/output facillities; there are no READ or WRITE
> statements, no built-in file access methods".
> 
> These guys WROTE the language. Have we pounded this into the ground yet ?
> 

I'm not trying to beat you up here. I am trying to make you realize that language
designers don't consider libraries to be part of the language itself. The library
is a support system, like a linker or loader. The language itself has several
properties that are distinct from libraries:

1. The language is parsed.

2. The language is expressed in the BNF.

3. A language feature that is part of the language is handled in the
compiler itself, vs. the linker. Fortunately, or unfortunately if you prefer,
there are system functions in some languages that can appear in the compiler
itself, be parsed and have a BNF, and still look like external functions.

Its also not anything against a language if it does not include I/O. The makers
of C were very justifiably proud of the fact that I/O was NOT part of the
language. Why ? Because it is a mark of the flexibility of the language if
it can rely on external libraries to provide this important function instead
of building it into the compiler.

.