Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site desint.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!trwrb!desint!geoff
From: geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: limitations of casts, pointer and function declarartions...
Message-ID: <193@desint.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Nov-84 22:58:27 EST
Article-I.D.: desint.193
Posted: Fri Nov  2 22:58:27 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 5-Nov-84 09:55:13 EST
References: <120@harvard.ARPA> <6126@mcvax.UUCP>
Organization: his home computer, Thousand Oaks, CA
Lines: 29

In article <6126@mcvax.UUCP> guido@mcvax.UUCP (Guido van Rossum) writes:

>>	int x;
>>	char *y;
>>/*### [cc] illegal lhs of assignment operator = %%%*/
>>	(char *)x = y;
>
>Sorry, you're thinking Algol-68.  What you need is:
>	*( (char*) &x ) = y;
>

I don't think that's the code that was intended.  The guy wanted to do
the same as

	x = (int) y;

but wanted to put the typecast on the left instead of the right for
readability reasons.  Guido's code gives us the equivalent of this Vax code:

	x &= ~0xFF;
	x |= (int) y & 0xFF;

and other code on other machines, depending on word size and byte ordering.

-- 

	Geoff Kuenning
	First Systems Corporation
	...!ihnp4!trwrb!desint!geoff