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From: svec5@menudo.uh.edu (T.C. Zhao)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: C puzzle
Message-ID: <1991Jun20.010011.18425@menudo.uh.edu>
Date: 20 Jun 91 01:00:11 GMT
References: <4007@d75.UUCP>
Organization: University of Houston
Lines: 27

In article <4007@d75.UUCP> thomas@advent.uucp () writes:
>
>       The following is an interesting 'C' puzzle. 
>       Consider this typical switch statement, typical except that 
>       'default' is misspelled 'defalut'! What is interesting is that
>       any C compiler will not and should not give you a syntax error. 
>       Why?  
>
>
>       switch (cmd)
>       {
>              case GO:
>                     ...
>                     break;
>              case STOP:
>                     ...
>                     break;
>              defalut:
>                     printf ("Unknown command\n");
>                     break;
>       }

Well, it depends. If defalut is never referenced, some compilers
with certain switches might produce a warning: unreferenced label
or unreachable code. I have not seen any C compiler like this( it is
my impression that Fortran compiler tends to warn this kind of
unreferenced stuff), but I wish my compiler would warn.