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From: kwh@bentley.UUCP (KW Heuer)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: unary +
Message-ID: <637@bentley.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Mar-86 11:05:13 EST
Article-I.D.: bentley.637
Posted: Fri Mar 14 11:05:13 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 21:18:13 EST
References: <1195@mmintl.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner
Lines: 17

In article <1195@mmintl.UUCP> mmintl!franka (Frank Adams) writes:
>I have a suggestion for the C standardization committee.  Rather than using
>a unary + operator to force the order of evaluation, why not use a different
>kind of parentheses; specifically, square brackets?  [ example deleted ]

Well, if you make any sort of syntax error on a line containing brackets,
you're likely to get a confusing message from the compiler.  I'm not sure
I like either notation, but +() seems simpler to me.

Here's a more fundamental question.  Under what circumstances would you
use this feature anyway?  If my understanding is correct, it only forces
the compiler to respect the parentheses; it does not force the enclosed
expression to be evaluated before anything else, so
	y[i] = x[i++];
or
	case '-': push(pop() - pop());
(where pop() has a side-effect) are unpredictable even with +().