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From: lvc@danews.UUCP (Larry Cipriani)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: What's wrong with printf() , exit() ?
Message-ID: <117@danews.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 11-May-86 08:31:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: danews.117
Posted: Sun May 11 08:31:22 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 19-May-86 01:53:59 EDT
References: <501@brl-smoke.ARPA> <797@bentley.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Columbus OH
Lines: 31

> What's wrong with
> 	printf("usage: foo bar\n"), exit(1);
> as above?
> 

Aside from style, exit is a statement syntatically but , requires
expressions.  The compilers I've used will accept this and do
what you'd expect.  Why is that ?  Is this a special exeption ?

Compilers may exist that won't accept it.  However, this:

	printf("uage: foo bar\n"), return 1 ;

generates a syntactic error message.  If a compiler accepts , exit()
why not , return ?  Maybe it's too complicated to do, and not worth the
trouble.

Some uses of , are transparent and useful.  Such as multiple initial-
izations in a for loop, e.g. for(i = 0 , j = 1; ...).  Doing all the
relevant initializations in one place is important.  Or in a while loop:

	while(readresp(CMD), command)

where readresp is a void function (and has to be) and command is side
affected several routines down.  Coding this without the , obscures the
code (at least to me).

-- 

Larry Cipriani		Nothing is worse than having
danews!lvc		an itch you can never scratch