Re: PROPOSAL: Objective-C++

[Stan Shebs <shebs at apple dot com>]

Phil Edwards wrote:
> 
> I know nothing about Objective-C, so I have only two comments:
> 
> > easier from then on.  The idea is to change gcc/cp/parse.y
> > to gcc/cp/cp-parse.in, and then use sed to separate out
> > the C++ and Objective-C++ portions of the Yacc file,
> > _exactly_ as is presently being done with C and Objective-C.
> 
> Are you aware of the cp-parser-branch?  The current parse.y is on its
> way out.

Yup, we're aware of it - and that it has no timetable for
going into the trunk.  So yeah, parse.y might not be that long
lived, but then again it might be one of those "temporary"
situations that lasts for 5-10 years (we've certainly seen a
few of those in GNU, heh-heh).

> > The good news about adding Objective-C++ to gcc is that
> > very little actual new code will be required!  Most of the
> > functionality already exists in the cp/ and objc/ folders. :)
> 
> What kind of library support is required by Objective-C++?  No changes
> at all, or a few tweaks to libstdc++-v3, or an entirely new libstdobjc++
> library, or what?  :-)  Again, I know nothing about the language, so this
> question may be completely moot.

Zem can correct me on this, but I don't know of any library
changes that we've had to do for ObjC++.  Every valid C++ program
is a valid ObjC++ program, so plain C++ code doesn't need to change.
It's always been possible to link -lobjc -lstdc++ into a single
program.

In a way, ObjC++ is the "ultimate C dialect" :-) since it can
take any of C, ObjC, and C++ source code (modulo those nasty little
C/C++ incompats, of course).

Stan