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From: cg@myrias.UUCP (Chris Gray)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Style [++i vs i++]
Message-ID: <512@myrias.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 2-Jul-87 13:04:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: myrias.512
Posted: Thu Jul  2 13:04:41 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Jul-87 11:15:10 EDT
References: <17310@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Organization: Myrias Research, Edmonton
Lines: 43

I'm probably unusual, but I use pre-increment to increment pointer variables
and += to increment numeric variables. I also separate out the increments,
i.e. don't do them inside other expressions. E.g.

    char *p;
    int i;

    ...
    i = 0;
    while (*p != '\0') {
        process(*p);
	++p;
	i += 1;
    }

This will look ghastly to many C programmers, but I have my reasons.
I use the two different increment forms because I like the added visual
clues that one is a pointer and one is an integer (incrementing a pointer
does not necessarily add 1, so I prefer not to see a '1'). I use the pre-
increment form since the incrementation is the action being performed by the
"statement" and I want to see the action before its operand.

The biggest reason I have for doing things like this is quite simple - I
program in other languages besides C, and C's idioms don't port to those
languages. My poor brain would just get confused if I forced it to try to
switch idioms on a twice daily basis (the other language changes and editor
changes are bad enough), so I've developed a set of idioms that work in both
of the languages I use a lot. The other language has a proper 'nil' and a
proper 'bool' type, so I use those in C too.

On the subject of 'if's - I would use

    if (! isdigit(ch)) ...

and mentally read it as "if not isdigit ch then". I would also use

    if (p != NULL) ...

One of the big problems with C's syntax from my point of view is that a lot
of translation is needed to go between the C form and my internal mental form.
-- 
Chris Gray		Myrias Research, Edmonton	+1 403 432 1616
	{seismo!mnetor,ubc-vision,watmath,vax135}!alberta!myrias!cg