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From: mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: C question
Message-ID: <885@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 9-Apr-85 16:43:41 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbtopaz.885
Posted: Tue Apr  9 16:43:41 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Apr-85 07:30:18 EST
References: <5272@tektronix.UUCP>
Reply-To: mwm@ucbtopaz.UUCP (Praiser of Bob)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 19

In article <5272@tektronix.UUCP> paulh@tektronix.UUCP (Paul Hoefling) writes:
>An inexperienced C programmer wrote a program containing the following:
>	x = x++;
>Assuming that x originally had the value 5, what should the value be after
>execution of the above expression ?

Either 5 or 6, depending on the phase of the moon and the mood of the
compiler. That expression, like such things as:

	y = funct(x, x++) ;

	y = &x ;
	x = funct((*y)++) ;

and other, cuter problems, are indeterminate. If you want your code to
be portable, you don't use such things. C is just full of goodies like
this, but so are most other languages.

	<mike