Public Comment Number PC-UK0079 ISO/IEC CD 9899 (SC22N2620) Public Comment =========================================== Date: 1998-02-25 Author: N.M Maclaren Author Affiliation: Self Postal Address: University of Cambridge, Computer Laboratory, New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB3 3QG, United Kingdom E-mail Address: Telephone Number: +44 1223 334761 Fax Number: +44 1223 334679 Number of individual comments: 1 Comment 1. Category: Editorial change/non-normative contribution Committee Draft subsection: 5.1.1.2 Title: Source line splicing Detailed description: One of the obscurer traps in C89 is that trailing spaces in C programs are significant in precisely one context: following the '\' used to splice physical source lines in translation phase 2. This causes considerable trouble on systems that support fixed-format records, because the implementation can treat those spaces as part of the end-of-line indicator, but need not do so. Many implementors think that the standard mandates trailing spaces to be regarded as significant. I suggest adding the following: Recommended Practice While mapping the physical source file to the source character set during phase 1, an implementation should regard an end-of-line indicator as being a maximal sequence of horizontal white space terminated by a single end-of-record indicator including any associated vertical layout directives. E.g. on a system that uses the same I/O model as C, "A \t \n\fB\n\n\t \tC\n" should be mapped to "A\nB\n\n\t \tC\n".