NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/comp/lang/c/16437

Text File | 1992-11-12 | 1.2 KB | 29 lines

Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: sparky!uunet!utcsri!torn!utzoo!telly!druid!darcy
From: [e-mail] (D'Arcy J.M. Cain)
Subject: LHS Casting
Summary: Is it ever OK/right to have a cast on the left?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 05:00:54 GMT
Organization: D'Arcy Cain Consulting
Lines: 18

I came across some of the ugliest code I have seen in a long time recently.
At one point there is a pointer to char that is declared as a pointer to
int.  To get an address within this block of bytes the programmer does:

(int *) charptr = intptr + (OFFSET/2);

Well of course this is bad.  The FAQ (question 2.13) shows another case
where the wrong code has the cast on the left hand side of an assignment.
Is it safe to say that there is never any case where a cast belongs on
the LHS of an assignment?  It seems to me that at best such code is
clumsy and could be better written some other way and that probably
it is wrong and the compiler is always free to reject such constructs.

--
D'Arcy J.M. Cain ([e-mail])  |
D'Arcy Cain Consulting              |   There's no government
Toronto, Ontario, Canada            |   like no government!
[phone]          DoD#0082   |