Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!pur-ee!pur-phy!sho
From: sho@pur-phy (Sho Kuwamoto)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: When is a statement an expression?
Message-ID: <2208@pur-phy>
Date: 27 Apr 89 22:17:01 GMT
References: <1043@itivax.iti.org>
Reply-To: sho@newton.physics.purdue.edu.UUCP (Sho Kuwamoto)
Organization: Purdue Univ. Physics Dept., W. Lafayette, IN
Lines: 26

In article <1043@itivax.iti.org> scs@vax3.iti.org (Steve Simmons) writes:
<
<A friend was over tonight and we were talking over wierd C code
<we have written.  [...]
<
<main()
<{
<	int a = 0 ;
<
<	a = if ( a == 1 )
<		12 ;
<	else
<		14 ;
<	printf( "Value of a is %d\n", a ) ;
<}
Perhaps someone else can explain this more technically, but it seems
to me that...

1) "if" is a branching operation.  It cannot be assigned to an lvalue.
2) "12;" cannot be executed.  It is not a legal expression.

This, however, should work:

a = (a==1)?12:14;

-Sho