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From: ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: C style peeve
Keywords: return
Message-ID: <10592@alice.UUCP>
Date: 18 Mar 90 14:10:32 GMT
References: <2205@osc.COM>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner NJ
Lines: 28

In article <2205@osc.COM>, jgk@osc.COM (Joe Keane) writes:

> It's a shame the compiler lets them get away with it, and i think the extra
> parentheses should be strictly illegal.  Unfortunately, for some reason the
> ANSI committee didn't like this suggestion.

For one thing, it would be the only place in the entire language
where it would not be legal to wrap a pair of parentheses around
an expression without changing its meaning.

That is,  (x)  is a perfectly good expression, so why shouldn't I
be able to use it in a return statement, as

	return  (x)  ;

??

A historical note: parentheses are required in return statements in
PL/I.  This is because PL/I keywords are not reserved words, so the
parentheses are necessary to resolve the following ambiguity:

	return (x) = (y);

Does this return the Boolean value of the comparison between x and y,
or does it set element number x of an array named `return' to y?
-- 
				--Andrew Koenig
				  ark@europa.att.com