On Sep 21, 2013, at 12:47 PM, Walter Bright <newshou...@digitalmars.com> wrote:
> On 9/21/2013 12:38 PM, eles wrote: >> On Saturday, 21 September 2013 at 18:55:46 UTC, Walter Bright wrote: >>> On 9/21/2013 11:03 AM, Maxim Fomin wrote: >>> >>> test.c:4: error: overflow in enumeration values >> >> It would be difficult to make the front-end track also the column number >> where >> it encountered (estimated) the error? > > That's gcc, and 4 is the line number (and the wrong line number) of the > error. No column number. > >> This will make error messages a bit more clear (and in the line of thos in >> gcc), >> especially for long code lines (where you could have, for example, several >> instructions on the line). >> >> At the beginning, until the feature is really implemented, the front-end >> could >> always provide "column=1", ie stick with current approach. >> >> But this will help the gdc/ldc-implementations to be in line with the >> messages >> provided by gcc and clang. > > Tracking the column number is certainly doable, but it comes at a cost of > memory consumption and some compile speed, since it has to be tracked in > every token. I used to do it in the Digital Mars C compiler, but it was of > only marginal utility and I dropped it. Can't you just hold a pointer to the beginning of the line and subtract to find the column? I agree that it's generally of marginal utility though.
