Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!decwrl!uunet!modcomp!nigel
From: nigel@modcomp.UUCP (Nigel Gamble)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Comparison operators (was: He's not the only one at it again!)
Message-ID: <327@modcomp.UUCP>
Date: 3 Aug 90 16:18:19 GMT
References: <25681@cs.yale.edu> <9007301417.AA21099@thep.lu.se> <2377@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Organization: MODCOMP, REAL/IX Development Group
Lines: 18

davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) writes:
>In article <9007301417.AA21099@thep.lu.se> magnus@THEP.LU.SE (Magnus Olsson) writes:
>| The people behind C *deliberately* changed the Algol operators
>| '=' and ':=' to '==' and '=' to save keystrokes - in most programs,
>  But the change was made in B, not C, and just carried over. It may
>well have been in BCPL, but I haven't written any in so long I'll have
>to look it up.

No, BCPL uses ':=' for assignment.  It uses '=' for equality, but
interestingly (to me, anyway) it uses neither '!=' nor '<>' for
inequality.  Instead, the compiler will accept either '~=' or '\='
as the inequality operator.  The latter is suggestive of the
mathematical symbol.
-- 
Nigel Gamble					uunet!modcomp!nigel
MODCOMP, an AEG company				modcomp!nigel@uunet.UU.NET
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