Re: do { quit; } else { }

On Wed, 09 Apr 2025 14:44:39 -0700
Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:

Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> writes:

On Wed, 9 Apr 2025 12:58:08 +0200
Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:
 

On 09.04.2025 11:42, David Brown wrote: 

On 08/04/2025 18:28, bart wrote:   

[...]   

 
I believe the meaning of "extern" in combination with other
storage-class specifiers was picked to work with existing old
code from before "extern" was added to the language.   

 
Assuming you mean the "C" language I don't quite understand the
last part of the sentence. Wasn't 'extern' already in "K&R" - so
what was "the language" before the addition of 'extern'?
 
Or did you just mean to say "[...] before _combinations_ of
'extern' and other storage-class specifier were added to the
language."
 
Janis, puzzled 

>
K&R was published in 1978, 5 years after C got its first users.
Back in 1973-74 C language was significantly different from what it
became few years later. 

 
The earliest C reference I have is cman74.pdf, currently at
<http://cm.bell-labs.co/who/dmr/cman74.pdf>.  It includes "extern" in
the list of keywords.
 
It was inherited from B, which had "extrn" as a keyword as of 1972.
 

O.k. Then David Brown will have to look for different justification for
this particular misfeature of great majority of Unix implementations of
C language.