Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!sharkey!bnlux0!drs
From: drs@bnlux0.bnl.gov (David R. Stampf)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: What I'd really like to see in an if-statement...
Message-ID: <1395@bnlux0.bnl.gov>
Date: 6 Aug 89 21:13:11 GMT
References: <5024@alvin.mcnc.org> <1300@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu> <456@helios.prosys.se> <14521@bfmny0.UUCP>
Reply-To: drs@bnlux0.UUCP (David R. Stampf)
Organization: Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, N.Y.
Lines: 26

In article <14521@bfmny0.UUCP> tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>The complex expression
>
>	val1 < x < val2
>
>(and by extension, the 24 other forms possible with <, <=, ==, >= and >)
>really has nothing to do with the 'if' statement, so the subject name
>of this thread is inaccurate.  What's wished for is a triadic comparison
>operator, ...
>...
>"We walked on the moon --	((	Tom Neff
>	you be polite"		 )) 	tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET


How true.  One of my *favorite* features of smallTalk is how one can compare
a number (actually a magnitude) for inclusion in an interval, and how SmallTalk
does C one better by making "if" an operator as well!  For example, one can
write:

	(x between: val1 and: val2) ifTrue: [ "do this block if true"]
				    ifFalse: [ "do this block otherwise"].

Pretty neat stuff.  I would imagine that C++ could handle such a construct.
One of these days I'll have a C++ compiler to try it.

	< dave