Issue 0146: Does the constraint of 6.1.2 serve a purpose?

This issue has been automatically converted from the original issue lists and some formatting may not have been preserved.

Authors: Clive D.W. Feather, BSI
Date: 1995-02-23
Submitted against: C90
Status: Fixed
Fixed in: C99
Cross-references: 0017.39
Converted from: dr.htm, dr_146.html

Submitted to BSI by Clive D.W. Feather clive@sco.com.

In this Defect Report, identifiers lexically identical to those declared in standard headers refer to the identifiers declared in those standard headers, whether or not the header is explicitly mentioned.

This Defect Report has been prepared with considerable help from Mark Brader, Jutta Degener, Ronald Guilmette, and a person whose employment conditions require anonymity. However, except where stated, opinions expressed or implied should not be assumed to be those of any person other than myself.

Defect Report UK 030: Nugatory constraint

[BSI characterize this issue as minor.]

The constraint of 6.1.2 serves no purpose. Subclause 6.1.2 states in part:

Constraints

In translation phases 7 and 8, an identifier shall not consist of the same sequence of characters as a keyword.

Semantics

... When preprocessing tokens are converted to tokens during translation phase 7, if a preprocessing token could be converted to either a keyword or an identifier, it is converted to a keyword.

Given the latter text [added in Technical Corrigendum 1, reference DR 017 Q39], the constraint can never be violated.

Suggested Technical Corrigendum:

Delete the constraint in subclause 6.1.2.


Comment from WG14 on 1997-09-23:

Suggested Future Change

Delete the constraint in subclause 6.1.2.