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From: tps@chem.ucsd.edu (Tom Stockfisch)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: programming puzzle (silly)
Message-ID: <423@chem.ucsd.EDU>
Date: 15 Mar 89 01:01:01 GMT
References: <24820@amdcad.AMD.COM> <218@umigw.MIAMI.EDU>
Reply-To: tps@chem.ucsd.edu (Tom Stockfisch)
Distribution: na
Organization: Chemistry Dept, UC San Diego
Lines: 21

In article <218@umigw.MIAMI.EDU> steve@umigw.miami.edu (steve emmerson) writes:
>[argument that "n&&m*=n--" is not equivalent to   (n&&m) *= n--  and thus
>not illegal, because: ]
>Precedence rules are needed only when there is more than one way to 
>generate a given expression and (consequently) more than one way to parse 
>it.  They appear to be unnecessary for the above expression.

This idea seems to me to admit too many wierd constructs.  For instance, why
couldn't you argue that the following expressions are legal?

	EXPRESSION	EQUIVALENT TO
	
	a + 1[0]	(a + 1)[0]

	a + b = c	a + (b = c)

	*a + 5 = 0	*(a + 5) = 0

-- 

|| Tom Stockfisch, UCSD Chemistry	tps@chem.ucsd.edu