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From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter DaSilva)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Literal strings in C
Message-ID: <197@sugar.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Jun-87 08:30:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: sugar.197
Posted: Thu Jun 18 08:30:05 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Jun-87 06:31:26 EDT
References: <212@inco.UUCP>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 18
Keywords: l-valued vs r-valued
Summary: The second form has actually been used.

In article <212@inco.UUCP>, mack@inco.UUCP (Dave Mack) writes:
> 	c = "literal string"[i];
> 
> 	"literal string"[i] = c;
> 
> 	The second statement seems utterly useless. 

The (in)famous Ken Arnold actually used the second form in an incredibly
complex macro in (I think) an early version of curses. I'll not
embarrass him or me by attempting to accurately reproduce it, but it
looked something like:

	#define ASCII(c) (c<' ')?("^"[1]=c+'A',""-2):(""[0]=c,""-1)

> 	"C is not merely stranger than we imagine; it is stranger than
> 	we *can* imagine."

Maybe you, bubba, but not the veterans of the Great Self-reproducing War.