[resend lost message]
> From: Guy Harris <g...@alum.mit.edu> > > On Mar 4, 2014, at 5:43 AM, François-Xavier Le Bail <fx.leb...@yahoo.com> > wrote: > >> Is it not better to add const in the propotype ? > > In what cases, if any, are parameters that are const (rather than non-const > parameters that point to a const object) useful? Even if doing that does not add anything to the interface, I think it can be safer as it signals intent within the function: the parameter is read-only. > C is pass-by-value, so it's not as if the caller will see any changes the > callee makes - i.e., the caller has no reason to care. Yes, I know that. The usefulness is not for the caller but in the callee to indicates that internally, the function does not modify the parameter. > So declaring an argument as const amounts to a guarantee that the particular > variable in question will, throughout the function, have the value that was > passed in, so that somebody reading the code will know that it's not being > manipulated throughout the function and doesn't have to, in the case of > packet dissectors, think "wait, is this the length we were handed, or is it > the length of the part of the packet that we haven't yet dissected"? Yes. _______________________________________________ tcpdump-workers mailing list tcpdump-workers@lists.tcpdump.org https://lists.sandelman.ca/mailman/listinfo/tcpdump-workers
