Assignment in test: OK?

[George Turczynski]

In article <1990Sep5.185451.25532 at DRD.Com> mark at DRD.Com (Mark Lawrence) writes:
> 
>    I have a proclivity to code like the following:
> 
>       if( (status = FuncCall(foo, bar, gex)) < SomeValue)
> 	      GripeAboutIt();
> 
>    or variations thereof.  When I run saber on such code, it babbles a 
>    warning about the assignment in the test.  Being the gullible naif I am, 

>	...

Oh, it babbles does it ?  What does it babble ?  In future it would be
more useful to know what the warning is about, rather than have someone
tell you what their `opinion' of your code is.  Opinions mean very little.
I might "guess" that perhaps Saber complains because the variable type
of `status' and the return type of `FuncCall()' are different.  In that
case you may have omitted a vital header file or not performed a necessary
CAST.  Who knows ?

Now ...

In article <BURLEY.90Sep6024459 at world.std.com>, burley at world.std.com (James C Burley) writes:
> Your code is fine IMHO.  But suppose you had written the following
> accidentally:
> 
>     if (foo = 0)
> 
> This is a common mistake.

(typing mistake ?)

This is only a mistake if you don't know what you're doing (or you have a
typo, in which case it's only a mistake for a short while).  It is, in fact,
perfectly legal C, but isn't what people sometimes want it to mean.

> ...... is just trying to get you to look at ifs containing assignments, just
> in case you meant to say "if (foo == 0)".  In your particular example, I'd

Does Saber warn you that you might have mispelt a variable name ?  I doubt
it.  It should only bother you with DEFINITE problems or things that it is
unsure about.  Lint is for finding out more detailed, obscure and discrete
problems.

> BTW, if I ever write a new C-like language, ":=" will be the assignment
> operator, "==" the comparison operator, and "=" totally invalid!  Although

I will be very cautious of such a language.

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