Date   : Wed, 29 Sep 1982 08:55:03 EST (Wednesday)
From   : Mike Meyer <mwm@Okc-Unix>
Subject: Re: Aztec C compiler query

I looked at the Aztec C II compiler a couple of weeks ago. Their claim is
that it implements the language defined by K & R, minus bitfields. As close
as I can tell, they do that. It does indeed have statics, longs, floats,
doubles, initializers, typedefs, macros, etc. The I/O library is very complete
compared to other CP/M C compilers - the only thing missing (from the I/O
library) was scanf. Note, however, that the Unix system calls are not there:
read is by 128 byte blocks, etc. even though fread, etc work as expected. Also,
ONLY the stdio type things are there. You don't get libdbm, the sort routines,
etc.

Nor is it exactly Unix C. For example, I tried compiling some code from a
Unix system (it wasn't mine), and had some troubles. Mainly, the turkey who
wrote the Unix code liked to do things like:

       long dx ;

       z = dx . loint ;

which caused Aztec C to complain.  There may be other such things. I consider
this particular problem to be a change for the better, and expect that
there will be more like it. Also, anything added to C by berkeley or since
K & R appeared won't be in the compiler - enum's, structure assignment, etc.

Summary - this is probably the best buy in a C compiler for CP/M if you are
looking for a good C compiler for CP/M. If you want something to let you
move code back and forth - it's not quite right. You can buy a version
for Unix (or so they claim) which would give you the best bet for such things.

       mike