[m-dev.] diff: update doc for c_pointer

[Tyson Dowd]

On 08-Feb-2000, Fergus Henderson <fjh at cs.mu.OZ.AU> wrote:
> 
> Personally I don't think the extra effort of defining special syntax
> for this construct would be worth it, since it is only going to be
> used in a few places within the implementation.  The major
> argument in favour of it would be that we could then detect
> types which are declared and not defined at compile time rather
> than at link time.  But that is not a very strong argument, IMHO.

Nor do I, but if we define a new syntax for types defined externally
in foreign languages, it would be good if it could provide this
functionality too.

> 
> > Other points:
> > 
> > 	- Using c_pointer as
> > 		:- type my_external_type ---> my_external_type(c_pointer).
> > 	  is probably sufficient for most people writing external
> > 	  interfaces.  We should probably document this trick (err, I
> > 	  mean technique).
> 
> The technique
> 
> 	:- type my_external_type == c_pointer.
> 
> is already documented in the language reference manual.
> We could easily change that documentation to instead recommend
> the syntax shown above.  See the diff below.
> I will go ahead and commit this one.

That's fine, thanks.

Tyson.
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