alan@oscvax.UUCP (Alan Rooks) (09/27/85)
It seems, from all of the talk of boolean types, and programming-in-the-
abstract, that C is being used for more and more abstract, quiche-eating,
pascal-ish stuff.
The language was obviously not intended to have a boolean type, otherwise
Ritchie would have included bool as a primitive type.
Anyways, if C must have bools, then i propose a new operator, analogous
to the ++ and -- operators, to be used for a very common *boolean* operation.
The !! operator.
if (!!flag) {
/* done if flag was false, but now it's true */
} else {
/* done if flag was true, now it's false */
}
if (flag!!) {
/* done if flag was true, now it's false */
} else {
/* done if flag was false, but now it's true */
}
Or to initialize the squares of a chess board:
isblack = TRUE;
for (i = 0; i < 8; i++)
for (j = 0; j < 8; j++)
board[i][j].colour = isblack!!;
This makes the "english" interpretation of the code very interesting:
if (machine_is_on_fire!!)
put_it_out();
else
machine_is_on_fire!!;
/* now machine_is_on_fire == FALSE */
Shall i submit this to mod.std.c ?????
Alan Rooks ...!utzoo!oscvax!alan
P.S. Please do not start up the ^^ and ->= discussions again.