2 Dec
2010
2 Dec
'10
4:48 p.m.
On Thu, 2 Dec 2010, Eric Smith wrote:
C can be pretty loose about letting you do such.
A[i++] = i++;
I can't quote chapter and verse, but I'm fairly sure the standard will
say that the result of that assignment is undefined. Many programmers would say "I would never write
code like that", but
I've seen statements like that creep into code as a result of
cut-and-paste or global-search-and-replace operations that weren't
carefully checked. It's also quite possible when writing complex
expressions to come up with things like that which are not necessarily
obvious to casual inspection. It is good that many compilers will
detect these things and generate warnings. When I have the power to do
so, I generally treat warnings from the compiler as fatal errors
requiring a fix, and not acceptable in released code.
absolutely. At the bare minimum, understand what is being pointed out.
It's hard, but necessary, to get beginning students to realize that an
assignment is not complete just because the output has the right number.
#define SIX 1+5
#define NINE 8+1
printf("What you get when you multiply SIX by NINE: %d", (SIX * NINE) );
"The mice will be furious."
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com