Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!hsdndev!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Funny mistake
Message-ID: <15490@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 16 Mar 91 22:30:05 GMT
References: <8148@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> <15481@smoke.brl.mil> <1991Mar16.195153.15509@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 12

In article <1991Mar16.195153.15509@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> gsh7w@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) writes:
-#>>"if (a = b)" instead of "if (a == b)". 
-#>... I have yet to see a UNIX compiler complain about it
-Doug Gwyn:
-#That's good, because it is valid C and the compiler cannot know whether
-#or not it reflects the programmer's intentions.
-Then perhaps that is why having an optional flag to inform the user of
-this sometimes suspicious code fragment may be a good idea.

In the world of UNIX, we normally rely on "lint" to generate warnings
about *possible* problems like this.  The compilers are expected to
accept conforming translation units and silently translate them.