On Sep 22, 2004, at 12:00 PM, Catherine Moroney wrote:
> Writing a function seems to work though. Or is there a problem with
> this solution that I don't know?
Yes. There is the problem that it is nonstandard to depend on the side
effects of a function. This is a frequent subject of long and heated
debates, both about how things "should" be, about what the correct
interpretation of the standard is, about what compilers actually do, and
about all kinds of other aspects.
The debates keep getting restarted, but never seem to actually
come to any real conclusion or new points. I'll decline to participate
if this restarts one. (And my resolve will be helped by the fact that
I'm
about to leave on a 4-day trip).
I'll just summarize by saying that yes, there is a problem. You'll
find disagreements about what the standard really means on the
fine points, but to me, that disagreement itself indicates that there
is a problem with counting on this. Even if person X (no particular
value of X implied - I don't want to make this personal) claims that
it is perfectly standard and he turns out to be completely correct,
you still have a problem if compiler Y doesn't agree.
--
Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience;
[log in to unmask] | experience comes from bad judgment.
| -- Mark Twain
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