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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!clyde!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!essick
From: essick@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: the 'broken' statement - (nf)
Message-ID: <3219@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Oct-83 23:35:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.3219
Posted: Thu Oct 13 23:35:30 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Oct-83 06:25:17 EDT
Lines: 32

#R:utzoo:-323200:uiuccsb:9000003:000:946
uiuccsb!essick    Oct 13 13:34:00 1983

Seems to me that the easiest way to implement the "first i in list"
construct in C is the following:

	for ( i=0;i < Limit; i++)	/* check the candidates */
	    if ( condition )
		break;
	if ( i == Limit )		/* or whatever it asumes */
	{				/* when it overruns the list */
	    not found;
	}
	else
	{
	    found;			/* and it is element "i" */
	}

If the collection of items to be checked is a linked list, change
the appropriate for conditions and make the found/notfound test
a comparison to NULL.

How would you specify the list?  Is it always an array? a linked list?
a binary tree?  a completely specified list of simple [== non array]
variables?  Have the compiler understand about all these data structures?
Blech.

The only case I can think where this might help is in PASCAL where
you don't have a break statement; PASCAL would benefit more from
adding a break statement than adding this construct.

-- Ray Essick, University of Illinois