3 ms·

Where's the language spec? The reference is nice but it's not a formal specification. So much undefined behavior - more than C! /s Edited to reflect sarcasm a

Where's the language spec? The reference is nice but it's not a formal specification. So much undefined behavior - more than C! /s Edited to reflect sarcasm as rustaceans apparently can't infer it.

dochtman 4y ago
In my understanding it would be hard to make the case that Rust actually has more undefined behavior than C -- most kinds of undefined behavior in C have been carefully avoided in Rust, although, yes, there is no piece of paper ratified by a bunch of national technology institutes that describes Rust. See also this recent blog post: https://blog.m-ou.se/rust-standard/ https://blog.m-ou.se/rust-standard/
- anonym29 4y ago
  While the rust community might not believe their language needs a specification, some of their would-be customers have business requirements surrounding a specification that cannot be fulfilled with a reference. edit: clarity
  - dochtman 4y ago
    A standard or a specification? Anyway, hopefully Ferrocene will be able to provide those folks what they need. https://ferrous-systems.com/ferrocene/ https://ferrous-systems.com/ferrocene/
    - anonym29 4y ago
      Thank you for catching this mistake on my part, fixed.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - pcwalton 4y ago
    Can you explain what the difference is between a standard and a reference?
    - anonym29 4y ago
      See edit
Macha 4y ago
Of course you'd expect a formal specification to include details on what the fundamental data types actually are - C11 can't be nailed down on what char is, it defines it as a type large enough to store a member of the implementation-defined basic character set with implementation defined signedness. Which means you could have a valid implementation with anything from a 4-bit unsigned char to a 256 bit or larger signed char
- LegionMammal978 4y ago
  > Which means you could have a valid implementation with anything from a 4-bit unsigned char to a 256 bit or larger signed char This is not quite accurate; there is no upper limit to the number of bits in a char (except for INTMAX_MAX, perhaps), but it cannot have any fewer than 8 bits, including a possible sign bit.
- caf 4y ago
  All the C types have had minimum allowed ranges going back to ANSI C. For 'char', it must at least support the range 0 to 127 (and in addition, it must have the same range as either 'unsigned char' or 'signed char').

Where's the language spec? The reference is nice but it's not a formal specification. So much undefined behavior - more than C! /s Edited to reflect sarcasm as rustaceans apparently can't infer it.

dochtman 4y ago

In my understanding it would be hard to make the case that Rust actually has more undefined behavior than C -- most kinds of undefined behavior in C have been carefully avoided in Rust, although, yes, there is no piece of paper ratified by a bunch of national technology institutes that describes Rust. See also this recent blog post: https://blog.m-ou.se/rust-standard/ https://blog.m-ou.se/rust-standard/

anonym29 4y ago
While the rust community might not believe their language needs a specification, some of their would-be customers have business requirements surrounding a specification that cannot be fulfilled with a reference. edit: clarity
- dochtman 4y ago
  A standard or a specification? Anyway, hopefully Ferrocene will be able to provide those folks what they need. https://ferrous-systems.com/ferrocene/ https://ferrous-systems.com/ferrocene/
  - anonym29 4y ago
    Thank you for catching this mistake on my part, fixed.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pcwalton 4y ago
  Can you explain what the difference is between a standard and a reference?
  - anonym29 4y ago
    See edit

Macha 4y ago

Of course you'd expect a formal specification to include details on what the fundamental data types actually are - C11 can't be nailed down on what char is, it defines it as a type large enough to store a member of the implementation-defined basic character set with implementation defined signedness. Which means you could have a valid implementation with anything from a 4-bit unsigned char to a 256 bit or larger signed char

LegionMammal978 4y ago
> Which means you could have a valid implementation with anything from a 4-bit unsigned char to a 256 bit or larger signed char This is not quite accurate; there is no upper limit to the number of bits in a char (except for INTMAX_MAX, perhaps), but it cannot have any fewer than 8 bits, including a possible sign bit.
caf 4y ago
All the C types have had minimum allowed ranges going back to ANSI C. For 'char', it must at least support the range 0 to 127 (and in addition, it must have the same range as either 'unsigned char' or 'signed char').