Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!bellcore!rutgers!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!crdgw1!sungod!davidsen
From: davidsen@sungod.crd.ge.com (ody)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Davidsen's device
Message-ID: <1532@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Date: 8 Aug 89 15:26:55 GMT
References: <1430@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <888@tub.UUCP>
Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: General Electric Corp. R&D, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 23

In article <888@tub.UUCP> net@tub.UUCP (Oliver Laumann) writes:

| This is quite a common idiom, I have used it lots of times (without the
| syntax error in your example, of course).

  I'm not sure that everyone would agree with that statement... the mail
I got runs about 7:1 with people who found it new and disgusting as
opposed to those who use it all the time (that's scarey, I wouldn't use
it unless there was a good reason). I never claimed more than
independent discovery, so I can ffel hurt that it's not a totally new
idea. There aren't many of those.

| 
| You can even omit the * since it's superfluous.

  Not in portable code it isn't. ANSI made it optional, K&R 1st ed
required it. I personally (opinion here) feel that it makes the code
more readable to include it, so that the reader knows what's going on.
The omission will also break a lot of tools which scan the code and
provide cross index, etc.
	bill davidsen		(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM)
  {uunet | philabs}!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me