Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
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From: philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick)
Subject: Re: Boolean confusion
Message-ID: <1991May29.171209.14760@neon.Stanford.EDU>
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Organization: Stanford University
References: <HAYDENS.91May23103233@natasha.juliet.ll.mit.edu> <332@nazgul.UUCP> <1991May29.145100.18519@watson.ibm.com>
Distribution: comp.lang.c++
Date: Wed, 29 May 1991 17:12:09 GMT
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In article <1991May29.145100.18519@watson.ibm.com>, mittle@blinn.watson.ibm.com (Josh Mittleman) writes:
|> 
|> > Note that you also need to get rid of any TRUE or FALSE #define's.
|> Remember to
|> > always test for 0 or !=0.
|> > 
|> > (Some other battle-scarred old C programmers have told me that they have
|> >  eventually come to the same conclusions.)
|> 
|> But that's exactly the point: Testing for == 0 is the perfect C approach,
|> but it entirely inconsistent with the logic of C++.  C++ should have a
|> standard built-in Boolean type.
 
Yes - maybe it would also catch a lot of those annoying hard to
find bugs caused by typing "if (thing = whatever)" instead of
"==". But how many programs would break? I for one would be prepared
to pay the price for the long-term gain, but I generally try to program
as if boolean and int are distinct types, so the price wouldn't be
very high for me.
-- 
Philip Machanick
philip@pescadero.stanford.edu