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From: grover@lowell.cs.unlv.edu (Kevin Grover)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: When do you use "if ( a = b )"? (was Re: Funny mistake)
Message-ID: <1991Mar19.192416.13756@unlv.edu>
Date: 19 Mar 91 19:24:16 GMT
References: <8148@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> <15481@smoke.brl.mil> <775@camco.Celestial.COM> <65837@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <1991Mar18.195351.11985@unlv.edu> <357@ptcburp.ptcbu.oz.au>
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Reply-To: grover@lowell.cs.unlv.edu (Kevin Grover)
Organization: UNLV Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
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michi@ptcburp.ptcbu.oz.au (Michael Henning) writes:
) grover@sonny-boy.cs.unlv.edu (Kevin Grover) writes:
) 
) [ Stuff deleted I entirely agree with ]
) 
) >Also, if you get bitten but this bug often, try something like
) 
) >	#define EQU ==
) 
) >	if ( a EQU b)
) 
) >Instead of depending upon remembering to use '==' when you need to.
) 
) NO, NO, NO ! Please don't do this.

   [ misc. flame deleted ...]

) And besides, are you going to change every occurrence of == to EQU in every
) piece of code you will ever maintain ?  I don't think that you would make
) many friends that way, a lot of software maintenance relies on noise-free
) diff listings.

Just so you know, I agree completely.  I have never, and will never use such
a construct.  I merely thought if it on the fly, as a means to help those suffer
from that problem ( using = in place of ==) get alone with as little difficulty
as possible.

However, I do not understand why you are so against such a use of define.
I agree that it might be a pain on a continual basis, but any person who expects
to use C regularly will (hopefully) discover this, and finally learns that using
= in a test is very usefull, or possibly quite using C.

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