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From: jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c,net.bugs
Subject: Re: e1?(void_e2):(void_e3)     so, is it legal or what?
Message-ID: <518@hadron.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 10-Aug-86 01:01:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: hadron.518
Posted: Sun Aug 10 01:01:21 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Aug-86 04:42:26 EDT
References: <273@watmath.UUCP> <5858@alice.uUCp> <134@sas.UUCP> <155@cbnap.UUCP> <499@dg_rtp.UUCP>
Reply-To: jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao)
Organization: Hadron, Inc., Fairfax, VA
Lines: 52
Xref: watmath net.lang.c:10201 net.bugs:867
Summary: 'Tis not, Throop.

In article <499@dg_rtp.UUCP> throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:
>Any clod can have facts, but having opinions is an art.
>> whp@cbnap.UUCP (W. H. Pollock x4575 3S235)
>>> jcz@sas.UUCP (Carl Zeigler)
>>>Scan again, Andrew, the (void) values are being thrown away.
>> The void values are not thrown away!  Remember that (A?B:C) is an
>> expression *returning a value*.
	[paraphrase -j-]
>K&R don't say anything, since no (void) back then.
>Harbison and Steele say:
>    3. They [the second and third subexpressions] may have identical
>       types (structure, union, enumeration, or void).  The result is of
>       this same type.
>ANSI C draft standard, C.3.15.
>    The first operand shall have scalar type.  Both the second and third
>    operands shall have arithmetic type, or shall have the same
>    structure, union, or pointer type, or shall be void expressions.  In
>    addition, one may be an object pointer and the other a pointer to
>    void, or one may be a pointer and the other a null pointer constant.
>        ...
>    If both the operands are void expressions, the result is a void
>    expression.
>All fairly clear and straightforward.  It is legal.

*sigh*  OK, let's get this straight.  PROPOSED ANSI standard
X3J11 describes a language (set of languages, over the past
few years) that has (and have) not yet been implemented any-
where by anyone (or if they have, word hasn't gotten to this
corner yet).  H&S, while a very good book, does take some
liberties at interpretation.  They are on the ANSI X3J11
committee, and could have been influenced in their interpre-
tations by the committees deliberations.  Most compilers
today follow K&R, which by declaring that the conditional
expression has (1) a result (2) with a data type predicated
on the types of the operands, seems to be prohibiting use
of void-type objects.  Until recently, Proposed X3J11
concurred with this, specifically allowing only arith types,
structures, unions, and pointers of the same type (remembering
that "0" can be construed as a pointer of any type).

Bottom line:  it's a mite early to be pointing to Proposed
X3J11 and saying something is "right" or "not right" based
on that.  Agreed, we should all follow and be aware (as I
was not, of this) of things affecting our good programming
practice.  As of now, the standards are K&R with s3 and s5
enhancements.  Anything that is not explicitly defined in
one of these is subject to interpretation.  As H&S points
out, the C language is what the C compiler accepts.
-- 

	Joe Yao		hadron!jsdy@seismo.{CSS.GOV,ARPA,UUCP}
			jsdy@hadron.COM (not yet domainised)