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From: darryl@ISM780.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: What does the compiler think I am do
Message-ID: <30000011@ISM780.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Aug-85 08:43:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ISM780.30000011
Posted: Fri Aug 30 08:43:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Sep-85 05:51:14 EDT
References: <648@ihu1m.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:ihu1m:-64800:ISM780:30000011:000:700
Nf-From: ISM780!darryl    Aug 30 08:43:00 1985




There is no such thing as an "assignment statement" in C.  Rather, assignment
is just one more binary operator, and the language supports the "expression
statement".  What you have written, c - a;, is just another expression
statement, that merely has no side effects.  According to the Unix philosophy,
this is perfectly ok, and (if you have a PCC compiler) it probably generates
the code to load up the values and do the subtract (why? beacause you asked
it to).  Hence lint.  Lint will also warn you about using = in conditionals
where you might have meant ==.

	    --Darryl Richman, INTERACTIVE Systems Corp.
	    ...!cca!ima!ism780!darryl
	    The views expressed above are my opinions only.