Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!nrl-cmf!ukma!rutgers!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Always use braces
Message-ID: <9272@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 4 Jan 89 07:34:46 GMT
References: <5@rsoft.UUCP> <1071@goofy.megatest.UUCP> <861@quintus.UUCP> <271@twwells.uucp> <11037@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com> <9235@smoke.BRL.MIL> <683@htsa.uucp>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 19

In article <683@htsa.uucp> fransvo@htsa.UUCP (Frans van Otten) writes:
>In article <9235@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa writes:
>>	#define	MAGIC	'\0'	/* silly terminating character value */
>How do you like it my way:
>    while ((ch = getchar()) != EOF  &&  c)    /*  find EOF or '\0'  */
>Any C programmer will understand how this function works; it takes less
>space, because it is shorter, etc. So: Why is my solution too simple ?

There is more to programming than simply writing code to short-range
specs.  My approach has the following practical advantages:
	1)  The role of the "magic" terminating character is clear.
	2)  It is easier to comprehend, because the different return
	    conditions are clearly spelled out.
	3)  Questionable points of the design were flagged.  In a real
	    project, these would be investigated and probably revised.
	4)  If the magic character ever needs to be changed, it is easy
	    to do in my version, and virtually impossible to go wrong.
If this sounds like an ad for Kernighan & Plauger's "The Elements of
Programming Style", well...