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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: impossible problem for find(1)?
Message-ID: <5817@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 30-Apr-87 15:27:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.5817
Posted: Thu Apr 30 15:27:52 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 2-May-87 11:13:01 EDT
References: <2645@phri.UUCP> <6454@mimsy.UUCP> <5797@brl-smoke.ARPA> <465@haddock.UUCP> <27409@rochester.ARPA>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 14

In article <27409@rochester.ARPA> ken@rochester.UUCP (Ken Yap) writes:
>|	EXIT( file1.st_mtime < file2.st_mtime ? 1 : 0 );
>Or better still:
>	EXIT( file1.st_mtime < file2.st_mtime);

No, there are two major reasons for writing the first form:
	(1) The "newer" utility returns a variety of integer codes.
	By making the 1 and 0 values explicit (as well as the 2 value
	earlier), it is easier to see precisely what is returned.
	(2) I try to uniformly handle Boolean expressions as Booleans,
	not as integers.  I find this practice leads to more reliable
	code in the long run.
A minor reason is that any reasonable optimizer will generate the same
code in either case, not that efficiency is important here.