MCENANEY WILLIAM J wrote:
> I'm back. What's that I hear, a groan? Grin. Since "nice" is a vague word,
> I don't know what is nice about "!strcmp()." But if we're talking about
> readability and aesthetic appeal, I would love to change C. Call me a nit-
> picker. But if I wanted to find out whether two strings were identical, I'd
> want to use an equal sign in my "if" statement.
Do you mean `=='? (an `=' is valid, but means something else). Using
if (s1 == s2)
is perfectly valid, but means something completely different (i.e.
Lisp's `eq', as opposed to `equal'). There are perfectly good reasons
for using either form; making `s1 == s2' stand for `strcmp(s1, s2) == 0'
would eliminate a useful option. It would also make C less consistent
if ((char *)s1 == (char *)s2)
would mean something completely different to
if ((int)s1 == (int)s2)
> Say I need to keep using strcmp(). Then I might define constants to stand
> for values that strcmp() returns. I could write:
>
> if (strcmp(s1, s2) == SAME)
> puts ("They're the same.");
> else
> puts ("They differ.");
>
> I'm no expert in C, but I'm a perfectionist about readability. Though my
> idea me not please an expert C programmer, it tells my readers what I mean.
> What do you think?
If you're that concerned about legibility, then it would probably be
better to define:
int strings_equal(const char *s1, const char *s2)
{
return strcmp(s1, s2) == 0;
}
--
Glynn Clements <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
