"Tim Peters" <tim@zope.com> writes:
> [Tim]
>>> A non-broken compiler always allowd passing a
>>> T
>>> actual argument to a
>>> const T
>>> ...
>> [David Abrahams]
>> I don't know if C differs from C++ in this respect, but in C++,
>> const in a prototype argument list has no effect whatsoever (unless
>> modifying the referent of a pointer or reference).
>> I meant T above to include cases like T = char*.
>>> So:
>> void f(const int x);
>> is identical to
>> void f(int x);
>> Not in the presence of
>> #define int char*
>> it's not.
Ouch. Now "int const" != "const int" (and I seriously can't think of
any other problems with that #define. Macros to the rescue!!!
... uh, <wink>)
> All seriousness aside, that's useful in C too, but rarely seen, since
> the meaning of C code is always self-evident.
Better than that. It always works perfectly and is trivial to write
correctly. Who needs Python when we have C?
> That said, I'm happy to add const decorations to Python's C API decls
> where it helps C++ users, provided we get to stop about a thousand
> miles short of making anyone truly happy.
That sure would reduce the number of nasty casts we need to make.
const_casts always set C++ users' teeth to chatterin'.
> compromise-is-the-art-of-spreading-misery-ly y'rs - tim
...somewhat.
--
David Abrahams
dave@boost-consulting.com * http://www.boost-consulting.com
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