NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/lang/c-part2/13442

Internet Message Format | 1996-08-05 | 2.4 KB

Path: mail2news.demon.co.uk!tsys.demon.co.uk
From: Tom Wheeley <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Can anyone HELP with variable delaration? Please?
Date: Sun, 07 Apr 96 01:42:57 GMT
Organization: City Zen FM
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <4jt07b$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
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In article <[e-mail]>
           [e-mail] "James Fairweather" writes:

> >Any variable can be declared constant, including strings:
> >
> >       const char * const str = "Foo";
> >
> >Or do you mean literal constants?
> >
> I'm not sure what the difference is.  I thought the keyword "const"
> was just for the compiler.  If you tried to modify the variable
> declared const, the compiler would complain.  Does it do something
> else with the variable if you declare it const?
>
> >In what way are integers a suitable alternative representation for string data?> >--
> I guess I was being too extreme.  It's just that in high school, when
> we were coding with Pascal, we were encouraged to use strings
> whereever possible.  Don't ask me why; it never occurred to me to ask
> at the time.  And sometimes when I read other people's code,
> espeically people who are used to Pascal, I often see them using
> strings in an if...else situation.  In these cases, a well-name
> #defined constant works better, because you can use switch and the
> comparison is faster.

I must say that that sounds appalling!  I would never use a string like that.
(Although I would be interested if someone could point out a useful time for
this).
In Pascal, (well, Borland Pascal for sure) you would use enumerated types.

It is true that the Pascal `string' data type does encourage you to use
more strrings than in C.  C actually makes you feel a bit guilty, as you
have to do all that malloc()ing and strcmp() and strcpy() to do things, rather
than a seemingly far less significant `:=', `=' or var myvar: string;

.splitbung
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